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BETTY GORDON 

and HER SCHOOL CHUMS 











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COFStfGHT DEPOSffi 









Betty Gordon and 
Her School Chums 

OR 

Bringing the Rebels to Terms 

BY 

ALICE B. EMERSON 

1 4 

AUTHOR OF “BETTY GORDON AT BRAMBLE FARM,” “BETTY 
GORDON AT OCEAN PARK,” “THE RUTH FIELDING 
SERIES,” ETC. 


ILLUSTRATED 



NEW YORK 

CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 








By ALICE B. EMERSON ^ 5 



i2mo. Cloth. Illustrated. 


BETTY GORDON SERIES 


BETTY GORDON AT BRAMBLE FARM 
BETTY GORDON IN WASHINGTON 
BETTY GORDON IN THE LAND OF OIL 
BETTY GORDON AT BOARDING SCHOOL 
BETTY GORDON AT MOUNTAIN CAMP 
BETTY GORDON AT OCEAN PARK 
BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 


RUTH FIELDING SERIES 


RUTH FIELDING OF THE RED MILL 
RUTH FIELDING AT BRIARWOOD HALL 
RUTH FIELDING AT SNOW CAMP 
RUTH FIELDING AT LIGHTHOUSE POINT 
RUTH FIELDING AT SILVER RANCH 
RUTH FIELDING ON CLIFF ISLAND 
RUTH FIELDING AT SUNRISE FARM 
RUTH FIELDING AND THE GYPSIES 
RUTH FIELDING IN MOVING PICTURES 
RUTH FIELDING DOWN IN DIXIE 
RUTH FIELDING AT COLLEGE 
RUTH FIELDING IN THE SADDLE 
RUTH FIELDING IN THE RED CROSS 
RUTH FIELDING AT THE WAR FRONT 
RUTH FIELDING HOMEWARD BOUND 
RUTH FIELDING DOWN EAST 
RUTH FIELDING IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST 
RUTH FIELDING ON THE ST. LAWRENCE 
RUTH FIELDING TREASURE HUNTING 
RUTH FIELDING IN THE FAR NORTH 

Cupples & Leon Co., Publishers, New York. 


Copyright, 1924, by 
Cupples & Leon Company 


Betty Gordon and Her School Chums 


Printed in U. S. A. 



| 











-X*h. 


CONTENTS 


1 

Cnr-> 


CHAPTER PAGE 


I 

Going Back. 

i 

II 

The Sagging Woman . . f . 

9 

III 

The House of Pendleton 

i 7 

IV 

Shadyside Again .... 

26 

V 

Settling Down .... 

34 

VI 

Initiation Night .... 

43 

VII 

Two New Teachers . 

5 i 

VIII 

“When the Cat’s Away” . . 

60 

IX 

Ada’s Petition. 

69 

X 

Poor Miss Harriet . . . 

77 

XI 

Bob Brings News .... 

86 

XII 

A Brief Triumph .... 

95 

XIII 

Hard Questions to Answer . 

105 

XIV 

Just a Little Story . . . 

113 

XV 

Bob Is Entertained . 

123 

XVI 

Madeline’s Mountain . . 

131 



CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

XVII In Holiday Mood . . . . 139 

XVIII The Operetta Roles . . . 146 

XIX Are There Ghosts? . . 154 

XX Detective Betty ..... 162 

XXI Honest Confession . ., . 170 

XXII The Plain Truth ..... 176 

XXIII Bad News . . . . ... 183 

XXIV Good News. 192 

XXV Betty Does Some Welding . 202 






BETtY GORDON AND 
HER SCHOOL CHUMS 


CHAPTER I 

GOING BACK 

“I think September is the nicest month of the 
whole year!” said Betty Gordon contentedly. 

“You say that twelve times a year,” observed 
Bob Henderson. “Once a month, regularly.” 

“No, but September is lovely,” Betty insisted. 
“Not too warm and of course not chilly and with 
a smoky haze—you know,” and Betty waved her 
hand toward the open country. 

Bob’s laughing face sobered understandingly. 

“It’s great!” he said matter-of-factly, but the 
commonplace words carried meaning. 

They both lapsed into silence, their eyes roving 
over the panorama spread before them. The car 
was standing at a parking station on the outskirts 
of Washington, and by turning in their seats they 
could see the beautiful city on which the sun 
smiled this perfect morning. The Potomac River 
caught the rays and became a bit of silvered metal 
ribbon. Ahead of them lay a Virginia landscape, 


2 


BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 


melting in the distance into the smoky haze that 
had captured Betty’s fancy. Not even the near¬ 
ness of the bright and garish station with its 
brilliant red tanks and gasoline atmosphere could 
detract from the glory of the blue hills. 

“I’m so glad we’re going in the car!” Betty 
exclaimed. “The Littell girls tried to get their 
father to take them up, but he couldn’t spare the 
time. Uncle Dick is a lamb to take us in the 
machine—he spoils us.” 

“Speak for yourself, Priscilla!” said Bob, from 
the front seat. “I haven’t liked to mention it— 
your temper is so lively—but I have noticed that 
you’ve taken your own way for granted rather 
often this summer.” 

Betty shot him a furious look, then melted into 
a comradely grin. 

“If you really mean that—and I know you’re 
teasing—you needn’t worry,” she informed Bob 
serenely. “I’ll lose my queenly airs with my tan 
and freckles; all will disappear together, like 
snowflakes beneath the sun, at Shadyside. Wait 
till Miss Prettyman takes one look at me.” 

“She does have an er—reducing effect,” ad¬ 
mitted Bob. “Remember what she does to Tommy 
Tucker?” 

Betty laughed and the sound was delightful. 

“I believe if he saw her hat in the distance,” 
she said, “Tommy would get tangled up with his 


GOING BACK 


3 

feet, whether she was coming his way or not. 
And at that, I don’t blame him much,” she added 
thoughtfully, “for Miss Prettyman’s hats are like 
nothing else I ever saw.” 

“Much Tommy knows about hats,” declared 
Bob scornfully. “I wonder if the gang all went 
up on the same train?” 

“Yes, Bobby Littell told me they were all going 
together and that the Guerin girls are joining 
them at the Junction.” Betty nodded. “The 
Tucker twins and Timmy Derby and Sydney 
Cooke—all the boys, she said, planned to take 
the nine-thirty-six local. Remember last year, 
Bob?” 

“Don’t I ?” said Bob appreciatively. “Perhaps 
the conductor will miss us this time—or be grate¬ 
ful he has two less to look after.” 

He raised his arms above his head and took a 
deep breath. 

“Say, Betty,” he said impulsively, “it’s good to 
be going back, isn’t it?” 

The girl on the tonneau seat met the nice, frank 
gaze of his clear eyes and smiled in response. 

“Pm as glad as I can be,” she declared, an eager 
lilt in her pretty voice. “I want to see the girls 
again and Mrs. Eustice and Miss Anderson— 
and, oh, how I want to do things, Bob! The 
second year is so much nicer than the first— 
nothing will be strange and new now.” 


4 


BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 


A roadster drove in close behind them, and, 
with a brief “oil and gas” to the man who leaped 
to be of service, the driver stepped out and closed 
the side door with a bang. 

“Nice morning,” he said to Bob, eyeing him 
a trifle curiously. “I suppose you’re going back 
to school?” 

“Yes, Mr. Rice, I go to Salsette,” said Bob 
quietly. 

“You do? I was sure I’d seen your face. Do 
you know my boy? He graduates this year. 
Name’s Roland Rice.” 

“I know of him—he’s two years ahead of me, 
sir,” Bob replied. 

“All right, Jim.” Mr. Rice caught the garage 
man’s signal. “I must be on my way. Wish you 
a pleasant trip,” he flung over his shoulder as 
he climbed into his car. 

“That’s Roland Rice’s father,” Bob told Betty. 

“Roland Rice is that good-looking boy, isn’t 
he?” Betty countered. “The one with dark hair 
and blue eyes? Tommy Tucker pointed him out 
to me once.” 

“Is he good-looking?” said Bob. 

“I don’t know about him,” said another voice. 
“But Ocean Park surely agreed with Betty—she 
gets prettier every day, doesn’t she, Bob?” 

“Why, Uncle Dick!” Betty blushed with pleas¬ 
ure, for compliments of this kind were not show- 


GOING BACK 


5 

ered upon her by a common-sense uncle. “Look 
at my freckles!” 

The tall, broad-shouldered man who had taken 
the wheel beside Bob turned, revealing kindly, 
quizzical and amazingly keen eyes and a thin, 
tanned face that showed many seasons of outdoor 
life. 

“Like freckles—always did,” he assured her 
humorously. “Bob tells me Norma Guerin took 
the skin off her nose, trying to fade the innocent 
little freckles she acquired this summer.” 

“Bob shouldn’t be telling such secrets,” said 
Betty severely. “That was in a letter Norma 
wrote to me.” 

Bob looked contrite and Mr. Gordon mis¬ 
chievous. 

“All set, Jim?” he asked the garage man, who 
wiped his hands on his overalls and responded 
cheerfully: 

“All set, sir.” 

The car made the wide asphalted circuit of the 
station and turned into the oiled State road. 

“I hope your patience hasn’t been exhausted, 
children,” said Mr. Gordon cheerfully. “I was 
ready enough to hurry the contract through, but 
the party of the second part had forgotten her 
glasses and we had to wait while her son read 
the papers aloud to her.” 


6 BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

“The poor old lady,” Betty said sympatheti¬ 
cally. “Mrs. Clune forgets her glasses all the 
time. Once she came to see Mrs. Littell and she 
couldn’t read the street signs, so she went two 
miles past the corner where Carter and the car 
were waiting in Washington.” 

“I’d wait all day for a chance to go back to 
school in the car,” remarked Bob. “Wouldn’t you, 
Betty?” 

“Of course,” said Betty graciously, her momen¬ 
tary irritation at him forgotten. “The Littell 
girls were crazy to come, too.” 

“Well, just once in a long time I like to have 
my children and no one else,” Mr. Gordon an¬ 
nounced, with characteristic decision. “It’s a re¬ 
lief to be able to see Betty and talk to her without 
having to sort her out of a group of half a dozen 
girls. And if I’m minded to call down Bob, I 
don’t forever yearn to first disentangle him from 
the Tucker twins and eight or nine more young 
imps.” 

“Anyway, the car wouldn’t hold them all, so it’s 
better not to ask any,” said Betty placidly. 

For three hours the car sped along through the 
wonderful countryside, a very beautiful and tran¬ 
quil picture in the light of that September morn¬ 
ing. Two lines persisted in running through Bet¬ 
ty’s mind: 


GOING BACK 


7 


‘‘Up from the meadows, rich with corn, 

Clear and cool in the September morn.” 

She was a thoroughly happy girl, she told her¬ 
self. Indeed they were all happy—those three 
who were linked in closest harmony and affection, 
who understood each other so well that they were 
not afraid of long silences. 

Bob broke such an one with an extremely prac¬ 
tical remark. 

“I could eat,” he observed mildly. 

“Beyond that railroad crossing lies our lunch¬ 
eon—at least the prospect,” Mr. Gordon de¬ 
clared, eyes ahead. “Hello, there go the gates!” 

He brought the car to a stop within a few 
feet of the lowered gates and in another moment 
they heard the rumble of the approaching train. 

“Express!” shouted Bob, as the long line of 
wood and steel and flashing wheels thundered past 
them. “That’s no nine-thirty-six local, Betty.” 

Betty smiled and shook her head, to show she 
heard. She closed her eyes for the swift move¬ 
ment of the cars made her dizzy. She opened 
them just in time to see something flutter from a 
window of one of the cars. 

“Something dropped!” she cried. “I saw some¬ 
thing fall out of that car, Uncle Dick! Let me 
get it !” 

“Wait till the train has passed,” Mr. Gordon 


8 


BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 


said quietly. “Just a minute, Betty. All right, 
now go ahead.” 

Betty jumped down from the car and ran to 
one side of the gates, now being raised slowly. 
She had noted closely where the something she 
had seen had apparently landed. Sure enough, 
she found it without groping. 

“What is it?” called her uncle, as she came 
toward the car again. 

“A book,” answered Betty. “Some child’s pic¬ 
ture book. I suppose she let it fall out of the 
window and— Oh, for pity’s sake!” 

Several strips of paper fluttered from the pages 
she was turning idly and Betty stooped to retrieve 
them in surprise. 

“They’re railroad tickets!” she cried. “Look, 
Uncle Dick—tickets!” 

Bob held out a hand to help her into the car. 

“Somebody’s out of luck,” he observed lacon¬ 
ically. “Can’t ride on a train without a ticket— 
that’s sure.” 


CHAPTER II 


THE SAGGING WOMAN 

Betty settled back in her place and handed 
the tickets to her uncle. 

“Cincinnati, Ohio, eh?” Mr. Gordon com¬ 
mented, examining the long strips. “That’s a loss 
for some one. I’m sorry. I’ll put them away in 
my wallet, though the chance of the loser claim¬ 
ing them does seem pretty small.” 

“Let me put them in the book, Uncle Dick,” 
begged Betty. “I won’t let them drop out. They’ll 
stay nice and flat between the pages.” 

“I think they’ll be safer with me, Betty,” re¬ 
plied her uncle. 

“I should say that was rather an expensive 
picture book,” Bob declared, as Mr. Gordon 
drove the car across the railroad tracks. 

“I do hope these didn’t belong to poor people,” 
said Betty anxiously. “I’d hate to think that some 
one who couldn’t afford to buy three extra tickets 
let these blow away.” 

The book was a gaily printed one with many 
marginal drawings in colors. Betty, idly turning 

9 


10 


BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 


the pages, tried to picture to herself the child 
who had let it drop from the window. 

“I hope her mother doesn’t scold her,” she 
thought earnestly. “That is, if she has a mother.” 

For Betty Gordon had no mother to scold or 
to praise her and no father. She was an orphan 
and the ward of her father’s brother, Richard 
Gordon, the “Uncle Dick” to whom she was de¬ 
voted. Something of her life before the bachelor 
uncle came to look after her is told in the first 
book of this series, “Betty Gordon at Bramble 
Farm.” It was at Bramble Farm that Betty 
formed a lasting friendship with Bob Henderson. 
Because of his mining and oil interests, her uncle 
was obliged to travel extensively, and though he 
did his best to keep in touch with his young niece, 
Betty’s experience now and then carried her for¬ 
ward more swiftly than news could reach Mr. 
Gordon. These conditions were responsible for 
the predicament^ that landed her in the household 
—and the hearts—of the Littell family in Wash¬ 
ington and gave Betty the joyous companionship 
and firm affection of three happy girls and their 
father and mother, not to mention a plump and 
romantic little cousin who cheerfully allowed her¬ 
self to be called “Libbie” to save the confusion 
two Bettys would surely entail. 

From the comfort and luxury of the perfectly 
appointed Littell home, Betty Gordon went out 


THE SAGGING WOMAN n 

to her uncle in Flame City, an oil town with all 
that that implies of rawness and ugliness, and 
excitement and power, too. With Betty went Bob 
Henderson, and that summer, spent in the oil 
fields, gave back to Bob the “family” of which, 
up to this time, he had been only dimly aware. 
He found the sisters of his dead mother and they, 
as well as he, came into the long-delayed inheri¬ 
tance of oil lands. Mr. Gordon, to the boy’s de¬ 
light, was made his guardian, and the farm days, 
when Betty had had to coax Bob from bitterness, 
became not unhappy memories. 

It was something of a “pull,” but excellent 
discipline for both, to leave Flame City for school 
—Betty going to Shadyside and Bob to Salsette 
Military Academy across the lake. The Guerin 
girls and a host of Washington friends were reg¬ 
istered at the two schools, and the first term went 
quickly. Good fortune came to the two Guerin 
girls during the school year, fortune, they always 
insisted, in which Betty had a part. For the 
Christmas holidays the hospitable Littells claimed 
Bob and Betty and “grand good luck,” to quote 
the former, gave them a couple of weeks of 
“Mountain Camp” before school could claim them 
again. 

At the end of the term had followed a delight¬ 
ful summer at the seashore, where Betty had 
acquired freckles and a hint of imperiousness* 


12 


BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 


Here, too, the same friendly crowd of young folk 
had played together and cemented friendships 
more closely under the glowing summer sun. 

Now summer was over and a new school term 
loomed ahead. The student in Betty welcomed 
the prospect of books and classroom, but she 
owned that it might be difficult to settle down, 
“just at first.” 

“I hope, Bob, that you are holding out bravely,” 
said Mr. Gordon, avoiding a depression in the 
surface of the road by a quick turn. “I thought 
that Berrytown was nearer. There’s a restaurant 
there which is famous in three counties for its 
fried chicken.” 

“I’m not exactly suffering,” Bob returned, “but 
there’s a sensation of—of—sadness, I guess, that 
seems to be getting worse instead of better.” 

“We’re coming to the town now,” Mr. Gordon 
observed. “Keep a look-out for the sign of a 
strawberry—down near the station, they told me. 
You feel sad, too, Betty?” he asked her, without 
turning his head. 

“Oh, Bob always starves to death long before 
I do,” she answered cheerfully. “I don’t believe 
they get enough to eat at Salsette, Uncle Dick. 
Bobby Littell said once that she’d enjoy seeing 
a boy who didn’t want to eat the minute he got 
into the house.” 

“That’s her mother’s fault for having a cook 


THE SAGGING WOMAN 


13 


who can make waffles,” Bob retorted. “There’s 
a strawberry down that street we just passed, 
Uncle Dick. I hope the chicken has gravy,” he 
added. 

Mr. Gordon laughed and turned down the next 
block. The town was laid out in neat geometrical 
squares and the center of the pattern was the rail¬ 
road station. The restaurant was within one block 
of the depot, and as soon as Betty saw the station 
she thought of the railroad tickets she had found 
in the book. 

“Uncle Dick, wouldn’t it be a good idea to ask 
the ticket agent here about the tickets that fell 
out of the car window?” she asked, as the auto¬ 
mobile drew up before the white and green build¬ 
ing from which swung a large and realistic straw¬ 
berry, painted vermilion red. “He might know 
what to do with them.” 

“He could at least telegraph on ahead to the 
terminal, I suppose,” replied Mr. Gordon. “Wait 
till I see about lunch—dinner I’d better call it 
down here; I’m getting anxious about Bob’s state 
of health,” and he grinned as he disappeared into 
the restaurant. 

“Have to wait half an hour. Sorry, but it can’t 
be helped,” Mr. Gordon declared, coming out to 
them. “You’ll have time to go down to the sta¬ 
tion first. I’ll wait here and look over the paper 
while you and Betty trot down to the station. It 


14 


BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 


isn’t likely the agent will know anything to be 
done, but there is no harm in asking.” 

Betty jumped out and fell into step beside Bob. 

“Here comes what Tommy Tucker would call 
a ‘sagging woman,’ ” said Betty suddenly. “Dear 
me, she does look forlorn, doesn’t she?” 

The woman approaching them “sagged” decid¬ 
edly. The effect was partially due to weariness 
and discouragement and in part to the warm, 
moist hands of two little girls who clung to her 
heavy skirts. An older girl walked a little behind 
her, and all three were weighed down by clothing 
much too bulky for an early September day. 

As Betty and Bob came close to them and Bob 
stepped back to let them pass, the woman spoke 
in a tired, querulous voice: 

“I told you to be careful, Rose,” she said 
sharply. “Now what in the world are we going 
to do? I don’t even know where we can spend 
a night.” 

Betty did not hear the girl’s reply, but some¬ 
thing in the despairing droop of the mother’s 
shoulders roused her to active sympathy. 

“Wait a second, Bob,” she commanded, and 
turned back. 

“Can’t I help you?” she asked gently, touching 
the heavy coat sleeve nearest to her. 

Faded blue eyes surveyed her dully. The wom¬ 
an’s forehead was beaded with perspiration. 


THE SAGGING WOMAN 


15 

“I don’t see how you can, but thank you, Miss,” 
the reply came hopelessly. “They put us off at 
this station, because we lost our railroad tickets. 
Three of ’em fell out of the car window when 
my girl let her book drop.” 

The three children stared at Betty woodenly. 
She felt confused before such a concentrated gaze, 
but her hesitation was only momentary. 

“Bob!” She summoned the boy in a voice that 
shook a little with excitement. “What do you 
think—she says she lost three railroad tickets!” 

“Talk about good luck!” ejaculated the de¬ 
lighted Bob. “I mean it will be—that is, it wasn’t 
good luck for you to lose ’em, of course,” he stam¬ 
mered, as the woman’s obvious bewilderment in¬ 
creased. 

“We found the tickets!” Betty cried. “Yes, 
your tickets! The book fell out of the window 
at a railroad crossing back there and I picked it 
up. They must be your tickets!” 

“Did they say for Cincinnati, Ohio?” asked the 
oldest of the three girls eagerly. 

“Yes!” chorused Betty and Bob. “Cincinnati, 
Ohio.” 

“Then that’s them,” the girl remarked calmly. 
“Now, Ma, we’re all right again.” 

“Could I have them back?” suggested the 
woman diffidently and Betty looked reproachfully 
at Bob. 


l6 BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

“We left them with Mr. Gordon for safe¬ 
keeping,” the lad explained. “Back at the res¬ 
taurant. I’ll run and get them, shall I?” 

“There isn’t a train for three hours,” answered 
the woman, rubbing her head with a weary ges¬ 
ture that went to Betty’s generous heart. 

“There’s a porch on one side of the restaurant 
where you can rest; and it’s cool and shady, too,” 
she said impulsively. “Come back with us till 
train time.” 

“Let’s go and sit down somewhere, Ma,” urged 
one of the younger girls. 


CHAPTER III 


THE HOUSE OF PENDLETON 

Mr. Richard Gordon, glancing up from his 
paper some few minutes later, was surprised to 
see a procession approaching him. First came 
Betty, talking earnestly to a tired-looking woman, 
dressed in shabby black. Then followed three 
girls in Indian file and lastly Bob, whose eyes 
were dancing, though his face was serious. 

“Uncle Dick!” cried Betty, as soon as she was 
within earshot, “here’s Mrs. Pendleton, and those 
tickets I found belong to her!” 

With no fuss or confusion and absolutely no 
effort on her part, the woman in the heavy black 
garments found herself seated in a comfortable 
rocker, a palm leaf fan in her hand. Betty’9 
pretty, eager voice was telling of the meeting and 
of how the tickets had been lost, and before she 
had finished Mr. Gordon had taken the long strips 
of paper from his wallet and placed them in the 
cotton-gloved hands that closed on them convul¬ 
sively. 


17 


18 BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

“I don’t know a way to thank you,” murmured 
Mrs. Pendleton. Her name, she had told Betty, 
was Mrs. Laurene Pendleton. “My aunt sent me 
the money to come to Ohio, and if we had to tell 
her the tickets were lost, she’d never forgive us. 
Rose, Mary, Pearl—can’t you say ‘thank you’? 
Rose is the one that lost the tickets,” she added, 
at which the oldest girl crimsoned. 

They were shy little girls, not very pretty, but 
with pleasant faces and quantities of light, shining, 
straight hair. Their black serge dresses were 
stiff and anything but suitable for summer trav¬ 
eling and each carried a winter coat over her arm. 

Across the three blonde heads, Betty’s eyes met 
those of her uncle. He smiled and nodded. 

“Mrs. Pendleton,” he said courteously, “we 
were just going in to lunch; won’t you and your 
family come as our guests?” 

“We’d love to have you,” chimed in Betty 
cordially. “You have time—you said there was 
no train for three hours.” 

Mrs. Pendleton tried feebly to refuse, but the 
three girls whispered: 

“Oh, Ma, please do; Ma, they have ice-water 
—I saw the waiter with the pitcher, Ma.” The 
most delicious odors floated out from a mysterious 
door screened with white netting, and Mrs. Pen¬ 
dleton yielded. 

“You’re awfully good,” she said gratefully, 


THE,HOUSE OF PENDLETON 


19 

“but four’s a lot to invite to a meal. If you’re 
sure we won’t be putting you out-” 

Fortunately the dinner had been fully ordered 
in advance, and it was served rapidly and noise¬ 
lessly. The Pendletons were a trifle awkward 
and self-conscious at first, but their host knew 
how to put them at their ease, and before the first 
course was finished Mrs. Pendleton was talking 
freely and the children were satisfying their hearty 
appetites in a manner that pleased Bob and 
amazed Betty. 

“They must have been about starved!” she 
remarked afterward. 

The Pendleton girls had never actually suffered 
for food, but they were undernourished, since for 
months their mother’s chief concern had been to 
buy the staples that were cheapest and could be 
counted upon to “go a long way.” 

“My husband’s been dead nearly two years,” 
she told Mr. Gordon, as she tasted her exquisitely 
browned chicken. “He wasn’t well for a long 
time before he died, and we had a run of bad 
luck ever since Pearl was born. She’s five now. 
Mary’s seven and Rose is thirteen. My land, they 
know how to cook chicken, don’t they?” she added 
appreciatively. 

“My husband was going to the doctor’s the day 
the house burned down,” went on Mrs. Perfdleton, 
spreading currant jelly on her bread. “I had to 



20 


BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 


drive him over, because he was too nervous to 
go on a trolley and he couldn’t hold the reins— 
his hands were all puffed up with rheumatism. I 
was afraid to leave the children alone, but there 
wasn’t anything else to do.” 

She was silent a moment. Bob surreptitiously 
pushed the dish of olives nearer to Mary, who 
had a small mountain of pits on her plate that 
already betrayed her. Encouraged by his nod, 
she helped herself to three more. 

“Don’t let me see you eat another one of those 
things,” commanded her mother sternly. “You’ll 
kill yourself—and we haven’t had dessert yet. 
Rose, cut up her salad for her—she’ll spatter 
the dressing, if you let her do it herself.” 

“You were speaking about a fire?” said Mr. 
Gordon quietly. 

“Oh, yes, about the fire!” Mrs. Pendleton for¬ 
got the olives and returned to her subject. “I 
drove James to see the doctor and told the chil¬ 
dren to stay in the kitchen till we got back. 

“That’s the only room we had a fire in,” she 
explained simply. “We couldn’t afford much ex¬ 
tra coal. But I had a little wood stove I used 
in my husband’s room when he was sick, and Rose 
got it into her head that she’d like to have her 
father’s room nice and warm for him when he 
came back from seeing the doctor. I warned her 
never to light a fire when I wasn’t there, but 


THE HOUSE OF PENDLETON 


21 


you know how children are—they’re set on doing 
things and they always think they know more 
than their parents do. I used to be that way 
myself.” 

Betty looked at Bob, but he was engaged in 
spearing a purple plum for Pearl, whose round 
eyes had seldom left the dish of fruit, placed 
in the center of their table, since she had sat down. 

“Rose carted wood to the room where the 
stove was,” Mrs. Pendleton continued, evidently 
finding it a relief to talk, “and she stuffed enough 
paper and kindling in to start a volcano. Pearl 
and Mary tagged her everywhere she went and 
they watched her light it. It burned fine, she 
said, and she kept feeding in wood till the sheet 
iron was red hot. 

“It was a downstairs bedroom—I found it 
handy when James was sick, because I could wait 
on him and do my work without going upstairs— 
and opened right off the hall. After she got the 
fire going good, Rose went upstairs to make the 
other beds. Pearl and Mary went, too. It never 
entered their minds to stay and watch the fire.” 

“And of course it set fire to the house,” sug¬ 
gested Bob, who had had experience with wood 
stoves at Bramble Farm. 

“It did,” assented Mrs. Pendleton, with a heavy 
sigh. “Our house stood off a little by itself and 
the first floor was pretty near burnt out before 


22 


BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 


the neighbors noticed anything wrong. Then they 
thought none of us was at home, and if it hadn’t 
been for one woman who dashed in to make sure, 
these girls would have lost their lives. They all 
had to jump from the second floor window. The 
woman who saved ’em was burnt some doing it. 
James and me came home to find the house and 
furniture gone and the girls with sprains and 
bruises, but nothing else.” 

“What a brave woman she must have been— 
the one who went in and got the children!” said 
Betty, her eyes shining. 

“She was a brave woman and a good woman; 
and if the time ever comes when I can do some¬ 
thing for her, you needn’t be afraid I’ll forget,” 
Mrs. Pendleton answered earnestly. 

“I never ate pie with ice cream on it,” Pearl 
was heard to remark confidentially to Bob at this 
juncture. 

“If you don’t like it, I’ll find you another 
plum,” he told her, but she assured him hastily 
that she “liked it fine.” 

“Then your husband died soon after the fire?” 
Mr. Gordon asked, anxious to learn something of 
the circumstances that had set the forlorn family 
traveling to Ohio so poorly equipped for the 
journey. 

“Yes, James died about a month after that,” 
said Mrs. Pendleton absently, for “pie with ice- 


THE HOUSE OF PENDLETON 


23 

cream on it” was a novelty for her, too. “He 
died, and I went to live with my sister-in-law and 
tried to take in sewing. I stuck it out for nearly 
two years—James left me some insurance money 
—but when Aunt Louise Esther wrote me to pack 
up and come out to her, I tell you I was mighty 
glad of the chance. She’s my only living relative. 
They tell me she’s queer, but at least she’s kith 
and kin of mine.” 

“Cincinnati is a lovely city, isn’t it, Uncle 
Dick?” asked Betty. 

“I won’t see much of it,” put in the widow 
quickly. “Aunt Louise Esther lives in a house 
with a wall around it and she doesn’t go out 
except at ten o’clock at night. She wants me to 
read to her and do the housekeeping and she’ll 
send the girls to school and let us all have a home 
with her.” 

It didn’t sound like a very alluring prospect to 
Betty and Bob, but Mrs. Pendleton was evidently 
more than content. She considered that good for¬ 
tune had at last befallen her—there would be 
food and clothes for her children and shelter. 
And they would have their chance to be educated. 

“She sent us the money for the tickets, too; 
I think that was real nice of her,” Mrs. Pendle¬ 
ton added. “Some people would have sent just 
the tickets. She said to get anything we needed 
with what was left, so I bought our winter coats. 


24 


BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 


I thought that was sensible. We didn’t have any 
good summer clothes, so I put the girls into the 
dresses they had for best last winter. They’ve 
been fussing about the heat ever since we left 
home, but black doesn’t show the dirt and you 
can’t expect to be comfortable all the time, I tell 
them.” 

Three flushed little faces smiled responsively 
at Mr. Gordon’s sympathetic glance. The dresses 
did look hot, even to his inexperienced eyes. 

“I hope the worst of your journey is over,” he 
said to the mother. “If you’ll let me take you 
down to the station, I’ll be very glad to do so. 
I have to get these young folk to a definite point 
this afternoon, or we’d stay and see you off. But 
you’ll not have long to wait for your train now.” 

The Pendleton family and their wraps were 
stowed in the car, Bob walking on ahead. He had 
had a hasty conference with his guardian, who 
had given him a bill and instructions. As a result, 
when the mother and three daughters climbed out 
at the depot, they found magazines, fruit, fancy 
crackers and candy neatly tied into a compact 
bundle for them to take on the train. 

“I don’t believe she has enough money to get 
proper meals, Bob,” Mr. Gordon had confided 
in a hurried aside, “and she’d be insulted if I 
offered to lend her any on such short acquaintance. 
But fruit and crackers are wholesome, and they 


THE HOUSE OF PENDLETON 


25 

can’t starve before they reach Ohio—and you 
might slip this envelope into one of the maga¬ 
zines for me.” 

When, several hours later, Mrs. Pendleton 
found that envelope and its enclosure, she ex¬ 
claimed, just as the donor had foreseen: 

“My land! To think I can’t even thank him, 
because we never asked those nice people where 
they lived.” 

But Betty had taken care to get the address 
of Aunt Louise Esther, and she was resolved that 
the three little girls should be remembered at 
Christmas. 

“I don’t believe that aunt celebrates Christ¬ 
mas,” Betty said to herself. “Queer people hardly 
ever do.” 

They left the Pendleton family a bit dazed, 
though happy, at the station and drove away. 

“Uncle Dick,” said Betty enthusiastically, as 
they struck the main road again and the car 
gained speed, “have I ever told you how nice 
you are?” 

“Don’t flatter the man at the wheel,” Mr. Gor¬ 
don retorted, his smiling eyes on the road ahead* 


CHAPTER IV 


SHADYSIDE AGAIN 

They had one puncture, but beyond that the 
remainder of the trip was uneventful. Late that 
afternoon they came in sight of the red brick 
buildings that belonged to Salsette Military Acad¬ 
emy. Through the green of distant trees a flash 
of water marked the lake which lay between the 
Academy and Shadyside, Betty’s destination. 

“Well,” sighed Mr. Gordon, a bit regretfully, 
“almost there, Bob.” 

Bob smiled at him affectionately. He admired 
and respected his guardian beyond any man he 
knew. 

“Halt!” came the ringing command. “Friend 
or foe?” 

A cordon of lithe young figures formed across 
the road and Mr. Gordon brought the car to a 
stop within a foot of Tommy Tucker. 

“Friend!” called Bob. 

“Advance, friend, and give the countersign,” 
directed Tommy. 


SHADYSIDE AGAIN 


27 

“Stuffed dates!” Betty cried, waving the box 
high in air. 

Instantly there was a rush, and a swarm of 
boys climbed on the running boards. Besides 
Tommy, there was the “light twin,” Teddy, Tim¬ 
othy Derby, Winifred Marion Brown—who had 
with much difficulty educated his friends to use his 
initials—Sydney Cooke and a merry-looking lad 
who was a stranger to Bob and Betty. 

“He’s new this term,” said Tommy Tucker, 
indicating the boy who hung back a little. “His 
name is Torrey Blake, and he’s Gil Lane’s cou- 
sin. 

Bob opened the doors—which was unnecessary, 
as most of the boys were proficient in what Tom¬ 
my described as the “touch” system and clung to 
the car with apparently no more contact than that 
of a hair or a finger nail—and began to ask ques¬ 
tions at a rapid rate. Who was back? What time 
had they reached the Academy? Was the major 
still on deck? How did the new wing, built dur¬ 
ing the summer, look? Did the new crowd size 
up pretty well? 

At the imposing iron gates which guarded the 
sweeping drive to the commandant’s office, Bob 
was dropped. He shook hands with his guardian, 
caught his earnest, low-voiced, “Write regularly 
and remember I trust you, Bob,” accompanied by 


28 BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 


a significant glance toward Betty, who was laugh¬ 
ing at some of Tommy Tucker’s chaff. 

“Yes, sir, I will,” answered Bob, jumping down. 
“ ’Bye, Betty! See you soon.” 

The seven boys linked arms and disappeared 
through the gates, each whistling a favorite tune, 
a musical diversion much in favor at the Acad¬ 
emy. Betty took Bob’s seat beside her uncle and 
the car shot down the lake road that would bring 
them to Shadyside. 

“I’ll miss my girl,” said Mr. Gordon soberly. 
“But I think you’re going to be very happy, dear. 
You have a host of friends, and by this time 
you have found your place in the school life.” 

“I’ll write to you more than I did last year,” 
Betty promised, with sudden compunction. “I al¬ 
ways mean to write, Uncle Dick, but sometimes 
I let a week go by. And, much as I love Shady- 
side, I’d rather go to Flame City again with you.” 

“And I’d rather know you were in this lovely 
place,” said Mr. Gordon promptly. “I want you 
to feel that you can depend on Bob, Betty. If you 
need help or advice while I’m in the West, confide 
in Bob. He’s a good deal older than you are, 
in experience, at least.” 

“Oh, I won’t have to depend on any one,” 
Betty replied carelessly. “Bob’s a dear, but I 
can take care of myself.” 

Mr. Gordon sighed, but a moment later smiled 


SHADYSIDE AGAIN 


29 


as he kissed her, for they were rolling up the 
drive to the Administration Building and the steps 
were lined with girls. They stood in groups, they 
sat in rows, they clung to the white columns of 
the porch. 

“Betty! Betty Gordon!” sounded a chorus of 
voices. “Oh, Bobby Littell, here’s Betty Gor¬ 
don!” 

For a second time the car was besieged, but 
now a whole paint box of colors seemed to have 
been spilled in the sunshine. Red, green, blue and 
white frocks and sweaters, brown, black and yel¬ 
low bobbed heads stood out from the gay picture. 
So many girls kissed Betty that her uncle declared 
she would be smothered. Laughingly she tumbled 
out of the car and turned her lovely face up to 
him. 

“Good-bye, darling Uncle Dick!” called her 
eager girlish voice. “Don’t dare to forget to come 
home for Christmas!” 

He left her standing on the wide stone steps 
and carried away a happy impression of a riot 
of merry talk and laughter bubbling from a ver¬ 
itable fountain of youth. 

“My goodness, Betty, you don’t know how 
good it is to see you,” said Bobby Littell, with 
another of her rare hugs. Bobby was not given 
to demonstrations of affection. “Let’s go up to 
our rooms and talk. We have the same suite we 


BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 


30 

had last year! Did you ever hear of such luck?” 

In the hall a girl stood at the mirror, fluffing 
up her hair. 

“Hello, Betty!” she said over her shoulder, 
having in the glass seen the two girls enter. 
“Awful nuisance to come back, isn’t it?” 

“Beastly bore,” drawled Bobby, before Betty 
could answer. “This education business does in¬ 
terfere so with one’s social life.” 

Betty tried not to laugh and succeeded. 

“I’m glad to get back, Ada,” she said sin¬ 
cerely. “It’s lovely to see the girls again.” 

“Take a look at the new class and you’ll lose 
your enthusiasm,” Ada Nansen advised her sourly. 
“I think some of them look too common for 
words.” 

“Ada always has a grouch in the fall and after 
every holiday vacation,” Bobby observed, as she 
and Betty went through the covered passageway 
into the nearest dormitory. “She gets indigestion 
at home, I think.” 

Bobby was accustomed to ascribing every in¬ 
disposition, from a headache to a heartache, to 
indigestion. She was an unusually healthy young 
person herself, mentally and physically, and had 
small patience with “the blues.” 

“You stay here,” she commanded Betty, when 
they had reached their rooms, “and I’ll go and 
collect the bunch. I think some of them are down 


SHADYSIDE AGAIN 


31 

in the office. I’ve got a big piece of news to 
tell you, but I want the Guerin girls to hear it, 
too.” 

Betty moved about the pleasant room with a 
pleased sense of familiarity. It had been “home” 
to her and Bobby for the greater part of a year. 
The bedrooms were arranged in units of three, 
and Betty was relieved to find that the same 
arrangements were to prevail this term as last. 
That meant that she and Bobby would have the 
middle of the three connecting rooms, with Libbie 
Littell, Bobby’s cousin, and Frances Martin on 
one side, Constance Howard and Louise, Bobby’s 
sister, on the other. Near them, Betty hoped, 
would be Alice and Norma Guerin. 

“We had it arranged just right last year,” 
thought Betty, folding a gay sweater neatly. 

Bobby Littell burst in at the door—all Bobby’s 
effects were sudden and her teachers complained 
that she never seemed to learn to “go quietly”— 
followed by Alice and Norma Guerin, pretty girls 
both, and devoted to Betty. They fell upon her 
now with shrieks of delight, and Louise and Lib¬ 
bie, standing in the doorway, had to wait pa¬ 
tiently for their turn. 

“How nice you look, Betty!” exclaimed Louise 
Littell, when Betty had been passed around like 
a candy box and comparative calm was restored. 
“Isn’t that a new way you do your hair?” 


32 


BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 


Betty glanced in the mirror and automatically 
reached for her comb. 

“My hat mashed it,” she explained, laughing. 
“Is every one here? Have you seen all the girls? 
I thought you said you had some news to tell, 
Bobby.” 

“Well, I have,” retorted that active young 
person, perching herself upon the footboard of 
the bed and balancing herself more cleverly than 
gracefully. “Connie Howard doesn’t get here till 
to-morrow. Frances Martin is due to-night. They 
say there was an awful howl about the early 
opening—almost three weeks earlier than last 
year, isn’t it?” 

Betty looked at her in affectionate exasperation. 

“News?” she hinted. 

“Give me a little time,” retorted Bobby, who 
liked to talk. “Abruptness, young ladies, is not a 
desirable,” she mimicked Madame, their French 
teacher. “But honestly, girls, this is what I want 
to tell you. Miss Lacey has gone and so has 
Miss Sharpe. Two new teachers are coming to 
take their places 1” 

“Oh, dear!” mourned Betty. “Miss Lacey 
was nice, and I hate changing corridor teachers.” 

“Yes, you have to learn their weaknesses all 
over again,” the wicked Bobby commented. 

“Miss Sharpe was the best Latin teacher we 
ever had—all the girls said so,” Libbie Littell 


SHADYSIDE AGAIN 


33 

remarked. “Though, I must say, she never had 
much patience!” she added a bit resentfully. 

“An angel couldn’t listen to your translations 
with patience,” retorted Bobby, with cousinly 
frankness. 

Libbie tipped her over on the bed as payment, 
and Bobby retorted with a well-aimed pillow. 

“Children must enjoy themselves,” said Norma 
Guerin. “Betty, one of the girls told me that 
Mrs. Eustice was asking about you. Let’s go 
down and see her and gather more gossip. Bobby 
always gets the advance telegrams in some mys¬ 
terious manner.” 

“I’m a good listener,” Bobby informed them 
gravely. “Wait till I brush my hair and I’ll go 
down with you. Mrs. Eustice always makes me 
remember the snap fastener I forgot to sew on.” 

The girls laughed, but they knew what Bobby 
meant. The exquisitely groomed principal, though 
always dressed very simply, set them all a high 
standard. 

“Hark!” whispered Betty, as they reached the 
office on the main floor of the Administration 
Building. “That’s Ada Nansen!” 

“And she’s peeved!” added the irrepressible 
Bobby. 


CHAPTER V 


SETTLING DOWN 

The girls hesitated a moment as a high-pitched 
voice sounded out from behind the office door. 

“But, Mrs. Eustice,” Ada Nansen was saying 
heatedly, “I don’t think it’s one bit fair. Miss 
Lacey understood distinctly that I was to have 
that room if Coralie Swan didn’t come back. She 
promised it to me.” 

“My dear girl, I don’t know anything about 
that,” replied the calm, unruffled tone of Mrs. 
Eustice, the principal. “As I have told you, Miss 
Lacey was called home almost as soon as school 
closed by the illness of her mother. She has a 
furlough for a year. Miss Anderson kindly helped 
me out in the assignment of rooms this fall, and 
she has given that room you wanted to two 
freshmen. You and Ruth have the same room 
you had last year.” 

“Miss Anderson did it purposely!” flared Ada. 
“She knows I detest those Guerin girls, and to 
have to share a unit with them.” 

“That will do, Ada,” said Mrs. Eustice. 

34 


SETTLING DOWN 


35 


The voices dropped to a low murmur. 

“I must say, I think if there’s any hardship, 
you’ll have the suffering,” whispered Betty, with 
a compassionate glance toward Alice Guerin. 

“See if you can’t get your own room changed,” 
urged Bobby. “The Bennett girls have the room 
next to yours, I know, but it’s impossible to 
avoid any one in your unit. I wouldn’t stand for 
it, Alice; make a fuss.” 

Alice shook her head. 

“I wouldn’t be so silly,” she said crisply. “If 
Miss Lacey wasn’t here to help with the room 
reservations, Mrs. Eustice and Miss Anderson 
must have had an awfully hard time. I’m not 
going to ask them to do one bit of shifting for 
me.” 

“Knock on the door, Betty,” commanded 
Bobby. “If Ada has started on her grievances, 
she’ll be in there all night.” 

Betty obediently knocked. 

“Come in,” called Mrs. Eustice, and the six 
girls entered the pleasant office. 

Beneath her white hair, the dark eyes of the 
principal glowed a welcome. 

“Why, Betty Gordon, I didn’t know you were 
here!” she said cordially. “And the Guerins and 
the Littells—why, you nice girls to be so promptly 
on time!” 

Miss Anderson, the physical instructor, who, 


36 BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

in the absence of Miss Lacey and until the new 
teacher should come to take her place, was keep¬ 
ing the room registration, smiled from her desk 
in the corner. She had spent the greater part 
of the summer with this group at the shore, and 
they were delighted to see her again. 

With the lovely graciousness that was her chief 
charm, Mrs. Eustice managed to dismiss Ada, 
who was evidently greatly put out. She then 
asked after each girl’s health and happiness and 
heard something of how the summer months had 
gone and received the messages Mrs. Guerin and 
Mrs. Littell had sent before turning them over 
to Miss Anderson to be registered as a fresh 
group came into the office. 

“We’re all so sorry to hear about Miss Lacey 
and Miss Sharpe,” said Betty, blotting her name 
after she had signed and handing the pen to 
Louise. 

“Miss Lacey hopes to come back next year, 
if her mother’s health improves,” Miss Anderson 
explained. “And you mustn’t feel bad about Miss 
Sharpe—she is married and lives in California.” 

“Oh! Oh, Miss Anderson!” gasped Libbie, her 
eyes round with wonder and delight. “How per¬ 
fectly lovely! And you never told us that, Bob¬ 
by!” She turned accusingly on her cousin. 

“Didn’t know it,” retorted Bobby briefly. 

There was no hope of dragging Libbie away 


SETTLING DOWN 


37 


without more details, so Miss Anderson obligingly- 
supplied her with all the information she had 
at her disposal. Libbie, as Bobby said, looked 
as though she were attending the wedding her¬ 
self, and when at last the teacher paused and said 
there was nothing more to be told, she sighed 
regretfully. 

“Now, girls, one of the new teachers will be 
on your corridor in Miss Lacey’s place,’’ said Miss 
Anderson. “I want you to help make things go 
smoothly for her. There are a number of fresh¬ 
men on the other side of the hall from you this 
year, and naturally they’ll take their cue from 
you. I’m sorry I didn’t know in time that Ada 
Nansen and Ruth Gladys Royal had set their 
hearts on Coralie Swan’s room. I’ve assigned 
that to two rather self-effacing girls who can be 
easily bullied, I’m afraid.” 

“We’ll be all right, Miss Anderson,” Alice 
Guerin hastened to assure her. “Our rooms are 
the same as last year, and Norma and I and the 
Bennett girls didn’t have any trouble with Ada, 
or she with us. Any one who can quarrel with 
Laura Bennett could pick an argument with Job.” 

“But at that, Ada is the most selfish person 
who ever breathed, and I don’t care if I do say 
it,” declared Norma, as the girls went down the 
cement walk, having decided to go part away 
around the lake. “Last year she never once put 


38 BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

the bathroom in order, and each of us is supposed 
to do her share, you know.” 

“Betty, do my eyes deceive me,” begged Bobby 
nervously, “or is that Miss Prettyman approach¬ 
ing us?” 

“You know it is,” giggled Betty. “She isn’t 
deceived, either. Why couldn’t that man have 
married her instead of my darling Miss Sharpe 
who could make Latin a live thing?” 

“You don’t wish the man any hard luck, do 
you?” gibed Bobby, but before she could say 
more Miss Prettyman reached them. 

“How do you do?” she said formally. “I am 
glad to see that you have returned punctually. 
Those girls who wait till the last day cause need¬ 
less work and delay, since the records can not 
be completed till the registrations are closed.” 

“Yes’m,” chorused six respectful voices. 

“Where are you going, may I ask?” continued 
the teacher, who was Mrs. Eustice’s secretary and 
generally kept a strict eye on the deportment of 
the school at large. 

“We thought we’d go down by the lake,” Betty 
answered. 

“I am sure you have all left your rooms in a 
state of untidiness,” said Miss Prettyman. “I 
shall do the corridor work till Miss Lacey’s suc¬ 
cessor comes to us and I must ask you to return 
and finish unpacking, so that the janitor and his 


SETTLING DOWN 39 

assistant can take the trunks down before dinner.” 

There was nothing to do but to go back to 
their rooms, though each rebelled at the thought 
of spending the rest of that perfect afternoon in 
such fashion. Miss Lacey, it seemed, had been 
nicer than they had thought; she was an extremely 
quiet woman and rarely interfered with her stu¬ 
dents until they stepped over the lines she laid 
down for them. Then she could act, and had 
acted, with force and decision, as Ada had learned 
to her cost. 

‘‘Has Dave McGuire got an assistant?” asked 
Betty an hour later, closing the lid of her empty 
trunk with a bang. “I thought George helped 
him with the trunks when he wasn’t running the 
bus.” 

“Dave has a man to help him this year,” Louise 
Littell volunteered. “A young chap, not over 
pleasant, though perhaps it isn’t fair to give him 
a snap judgment. His name is John Towsky and 
he has already let it be known that he doesn’t 
take any orders unless they come from Dave 
McGuire.” 

The full roster of the school wajs registered by 
the next day, Frances Martin arriving that same 
night and Constance Howard—who had to make 
the journey from San Francisco—coming early the 
following afternoon. There was much specula¬ 
tion about the two new teachers, but Mrs. Eustice 


40 


BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 


announced that they might be delayed several days 
and that she herself would take the Latin classes 
until the Misses Nevins arrived. 

“That means Miss Prettyman will drive us mad 
until this new woman takes pity on us and comes,” 
mourned Bobby. 

“The new one may be worse,” Norma Guerin 
retorted darkly, but Bobby said that her sugges¬ 
tion was an impossibility. 

“Well, we can’t waste any more time waiting 
for Miss What’s-Her-Name to guide us in history 
and the path of conduct,” announced Bobby, a 
night or two later. “The Mysterious Four are 
going to take in some of the freshies to-night and 
we’re supposed to help.” 

Libbie groaned. 

“Just my luck!” she complained. “Mrs. Eus- 
tice gave me a page of translation to do and hand 
to her before breakfast to-morrow—who told me 
she was an easy teacher?—and Miss Prettyman 
and I had an argument this afternoon and noth¬ 
ing will satisfy her but an essay on Charles the 
First, extra assignment.” 

“If it was only Miss Prettyman, you might 
let the work slide, Libbie,” said Betty thought¬ 
fully. “But Mrs. Eustice simply will not accept 
excuses; so it looks as though you’d have to stay.” 

“Oh, the translation is done,” Libbie informed 
her blithely. “Timmie Derby did it for me— 


SETTLING DOWN 


41 


that is, he’s going to. Latin is as easy as English 
for Timothy. And I think I’ll let Miss Pretty- 
man wait for Charles the First—silly old chump 
he was, anyway.” 

“I don’t know where you’ve had a chance to 
see Timothy,” said Betty. “Anyway, if you think 
Mrs. Eustice can’t tell his style of translation 
from yours, you’re due for a jolt.” 

“Never mind where I saw Timothy!” retorted 
Libbie airily. “Come on, let’s work up some 
awful stunts for the poor little freshies.” 

The Mysterious Four, of which Bobby had 
spoken, had elected Betty and Bobby and their 
six closest chums to membership the year before. 
The organization was in control of the seniors, 
and since the sophomores were generally taken 
under the wing of the upper class, leaving the 
juniors to protect the entering class, the second 
year girls had been selected to serve as assistants 
this evening. 

“Girls, I’m to wear one of the hoods and 
veils!” announced Betty, with a shiver of delicious 
anticipation. “ ’Member how frightened we were 
last year?” 

Tap! Tap! sounded at the door. 

Constance Howard rose to open it and two 
senior girls came in. 

“We’ve brought you your hood and veil, Bet¬ 
ty,” said Leila Grover. “The girls are in their 


42 


BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 


rooms waiting for you. Anna is going with you. 
The rest of us will go down to the study hall and 
get the commands shuffled in the basket. But, 
Betty-” 

“Yes?” said Betty, her voice muffled by the 
veil which Louise was adjusting over her face. 

“I forgot to get the key from Dave—the water 
tower key, you know. Will you ask him? You’ll 
have plenty of time after the notifications. We 
had such fun with the water tower last year that 
we thought we’d try the stunt again.” 

“I’ll get the key,” promised Betty. “Though 
I hope the girl who picks that command from the 
basket will have a luckier time of it than I had,” 
she added. 

For Betty’s initiation stunt the year before had 
been to visit this water tower alone at midnight. 
The “commands” were drawn by each candidate 
from a basket held by a senior student and were 
to be implicitly obeyed. Betty had gone through 
with her task, but not without more excitement 
than had been originally planned for her. 


CHAPTER VI 


INITIATION NIGHT 

Anna Maynard, the second senior, was to go 
with Betty, and the others went down to the large 
study hall where the initiations were to be held. 
In the corridor two other veiled figures joined 
Betty and Anna—a senior, Tracy Gray, and stout 
Dora Estabrooke, who was in Betty’s class. These 
were the committee of the Mysterious Four who 
were to visit each freshman’s room and com¬ 
mand her attendance in the study hall. 

They visited four rooms, leaving consternation 
and delight in their wake, then tapped at the 
door of the room occupied by the two girls who 
had “driven out” Ada Nansen and Ruth Gladys 
Royal from their coveted place; at least, so Ada 
asserted. 

“Come—come in,” said a voice, when Tracy 
Gray had knocked firmly. 

“Freshmen, when we enter, rise,” commanded 
Anna Maynard, and Betty felt again the thrill 
she had experienced a year ago when that order 
had been addressed to her. 


43 


44 


BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 


The two girls who roomed together stood up. 
They were both plump, good-natured-looking and 
—alas for Mrs. Eustice’s lectures on what to 
wear and what not to wear—both were garbed 
in kimonos and flopping slippers. 

“Get dressed and go down to the study hall?” 
echoed the blue-eyed one, Edith Ames, weakly, 
when she heard what she was supposed to do. 
“Good gracious, do I have to get dressed and 
go downstairs again to-night?” 

“You certainly do,” Anna informed her briskly. 

Edith’s room-mate, Jessie Wood, reached for 
the candy box open on the table. 

“I’m too tired to do another thing,” she an¬ 
nounced. “I was going to bed in another minute.” 

“If you’re ill, we’ll call the corridor teacher and 
take her report,” Anna returned imperturbably. 
“Otherwise, you are to be in the study hall within 
five minutes.” 

“Don’t call Miss Prettyman!” begged Jessie, 
in obvious panic. “She’s been talking diet to me 
ever since I came to school—she and Miss Ander¬ 
son. I won’t diet; I like to eat and I intend to 
eat. I’ll get dressed, honestly I will.” 

When all the freshmen had been visited the 
committee went down to the study hall, to find 
it buzzing with excitement. The candidates were 
huddled in the front rows of seats and the seniors 


INITIATION NIGHT 


45 

were busily writing out the last of the tasks to 
be performed as initiation stunts. 

“I have to go get the water tower key,” whis¬ 
pered Betty, handing her hood and veil to Bobby, 
who was guarding the door that opened on the 
stage. “I’ll be back in time to see some of the 
fun.” 

“Wait a minute and I’ll go with you,” said 
Bobby. “Louise, you watch the door.” 

Norma Guerin volunteered to come too, and 
the three went down to the basement in search 
of Dave McGuire, the grizzled janitor. 

The sound of a fire shovel scraped across the 
furnace room floor drew them in that direction. 
The heaters had not been lighted for the season, 
but the hot water boiler needed individual atten¬ 
tion. A man was examining a gauge as the girls 
peeped in at the door. 

“Where’s Dave?” asked Betty cheerfully, 
thinking that it was George, the garageman. He 
and the janitor often traded favors. 

The figure straightened and the black-browed, 
scowling face of John Towsky, the new assistant 
janitor, was raised to her. 

“McGuire’s gone to the movies,” said Towsky 
surlily. 

“Oh, well! May we have one of the keys to 
the water tower, please?” Betty asked. “We’re 
going to use it in an initiation stunt.” 


46 BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

Towsky frowned and shook his head. 

“You’ll get no key from me,” he declared. 
“I’m not in the habit of handing out my keys to 
the students, to have ’em lost when they’re 
needed.” 

His tone was disagreeable and his lounging at¬ 
titude more so. Bobby spoke sharply. 

“Dave always gives us the key—he did last 
year,” she said. “We haven’t any time to waste; 
let us have it at once.” 

The man muttered something in his native 
tongue. His English was without an accent, but 
guttural. Betty judged he had been born in this 
country, probably of foreign parents. 

“You’ll get no key from me,” he retorted, 
folding his arms and leaning against one of the 
pipes. 

Betty saw behind him a board covered with 
hooks. On each hook hung a key, neatly labeled 
with a tag. She recognized the key to the water 
tower, the counterpart of one Dave McGuire car¬ 
ried on his huge key-ring. 

“I don’t believe this man can read,” she thought 
to herself, forcing her eyes to leave the board, 
lest his attention be drawn to it. “Or else he 
hasn’t been here long enough to know where Dave 
keeps his spare keys. I wonder if I could get 
that key off the board?” 

Fortune favored her to a certain extent, and she 


INITIATION NIGHT 


4 7 


made up the distance remaining to her goal with 
a dash of daring—a Betty-method of getting out 
of difficulties. Norma and Bobby turned to go 
upstairs and Towsky moved toward the door, 
too, having evidently finished his work at the 
boiler. 

Betty ran noiselessly to the board, unhooked 
the key, and turned triumphantly to face the livid 
assistant janitor. At that same moment the mas¬ 
sive shoulders and grizzled head of Dave Mc¬ 
Guire were thrust into the small room. 

“You give that to me! You stole it!” Towsky 
shouted hoarsely. 

“None of that,” growled Dave. “None of 
that! What’s the trouble, Miss Betty?” 

“We wanted the water tower key,” Betty 
panted, clutching it tightly. “It’s initiation night, 
Dave, and we had to have it. He wouldn’t let 
us have it, so I took it. You don’t care, do you?” 

The janitor’s silent laugh shook his heavy 
frame. 

“Who am I, to put my weak will against that 
of the likes of you?” he replied cheerfully. “I 
minded it was the night for your stunts and came 
back to tell John, here, about the keys. He didn’t 
know they’re the extra ones. For all he knew, I 
had ’em all with me and if he’d told you that, 
he would have told the truth as far as he knew it.” 


48 BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

The younger man darted a black look at Betty, 
which did not escape the notice of his superior. 

“Did he say aught to you that was out of 
place?” Dave asked quickly. “Was he fresh, Miss 
Betty? ’Tis myself will be only too happy to 
teach him the manners, if he’s lacking ’em.” 

Bobby and Norma, from the doorway, would 
have spoken, but Betty stopped them with a 
glance of warning. 

“Oh, no,” she said hurriedly. “He—he didn’t 
understand, I guess. That’s all. I’m awfully glad 
to get the key, and we’ll return it to you positively 
by to-morrow morning.” 

“And at that, I’ll warrant you got off easy, me 
lad,” grumbled McGuire to his assistant, as the 
girls ran upstairs to the study hall. “Miss Betty’s 
no hand for telling tales, but you’ve got a tongue 
in your head and a disposition that’s going to 
land you in trouble some day.” 

The initiations proceeded smoothly, the girls 
enjoying the absurd “stunts” until, after ice-cream 
and cake, they scattered to their rooms, to carry 
out the “sealed orders,” as the slips drawn from 
the basket on the darkened platform were desig¬ 
nated. When Betty and her chums had joined the 
society, this second degree had been saved for 
another meeting, but the officers had decided to 
combine the two in one this term. This was 
partly because the absence of the two teachers 


INITIATION NIGHT 


49 

was causing lightened class work which would 
have to be made up later in the term. 

Betty had taken no part in writing the sealed 
orders, described as “tests of character,” and 
when she heard bursts of laughter coming from 
the room of Jessie Wood and Edith Ames, she 
judged that they had drawn commands which 
pleased them. 

She was surprised a few minutes later to hear 
a tap at her door. Bobby was still in the study 
hall and Betty was alone, a circumstance in itself 
rare. Her uncle had once declared that she 
seemed perpetually surrounded by girls. 

“Oh, Miss Gordon,” fluttered Edith Ames, 
stepping over the sill, “I want to ask you if you’ll 
lend me your locker keys. Like a perfect idiot, 
I left mine in the gym balcony, and I can’t get 
them till the janitor unlocks the building to-¬ 
morrow.” 

“Of course you may have my keys,” Betty 
answered promptly. “But there is nothing in the 
locker—not a thing.” 

The lockers were in the basement and could 
be used without going into the main gymnasium 
building. 

“I thought you kept your canoe paddles in it,” 
said Edith disappointedly. 

“Canoe paddles!” repeated Betty. “What on 


BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 


50 

earth do you want with paddles at this time of 
night?” 

“Well, of course it’s a secret, but if you must 
know I don’t suppose there is any harm in telling; 
you’re a sophomore,” Edith rattled on, being one 
of those girls who can never make her meaning 
clear in a few words. “There, read that. It’s 
my sealed order!” 

She gave Betty a slip of paper on which was 
scrawled: “Paddle across the lake and place a 
Shadyside banner on top of the Salsette iron 
gates.” 

“You can’t do anything like that,” Betty said 
slowly. “It’s against all the school rules. We 
can’t go out after dark, much less when it’s nearly 
eleven o’clock. And you can’t cross the lake after 
six, let alone play silly tricks like this that reflect 
on the school.” 

“I was ordered to do it, and I’m going to,” 
said Edith, her weak chin set obstinately. “I 
won’t fall down on my first initiation.” 

Betty glanced at the paper again. She hoped 
Libbie had not written it. No matter, if she 
had. With sudden determination she tore the 
slip across and tossed the pieces into her waste¬ 
basket. 

“Don’t be silly,” she advised Edith tersely. 


CHAPTER VII 


TWO NEW TEACHERS 

“Well, thanks be, that’s over!” announced 
Bobby, bursting through the door in her usual 
impetuous fashion. 

“Huh? What is it?” she asked, with a star¬ 
tling change of tone. 

Edith Ames stood in the center of the floor, 
wearing a light coat and trailing a scarf on the 
floor. Betty faced her, and it was Betty’s expres¬ 
sion that surprised Bobby. 

“She looked like a—like—a—well, like Mrs. 
Eustice does when she’s laying down the law,” 
Bobby explained to Louise the next day. 

“Bobby, you go and tell Leila Grover to come 
here,” said Betty coldly. 

“It’s late; won’t to-morrow do?” Bobby sug¬ 
gested. 

“Go and get her now,” was Betty’s reply to 
this, and the amazed Bobby hurried off in search 
of the senior class president. 

Leila came back with her in a few minutes, 
51 


BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 


52 

and Betty and Edith were standing in the same 
positions when Bobby saw them again. 

“Miss Prettyman is having fits, Betty,” Leila 
announced. “Lights are going off in ten minutes. 
Did you send for me?” 

“Edith is also having a fit,” announced Betty 
calmly. “I tore up her initiation slip, and she’s 
peeved. Her instructions were to paddle across 
the lake and place a Shadyside banner on top of 
the Salsette iron gates.” 

Leila’s lips closed in a firm line. 

“Let me have the pieces, if there are any 
left,” she commanded. “I hope, Edith, you don’t 
think the Mysterious Four would stand for any 
such foolishness as that. Here, I’ll write you 
out another slip. Lend me your fountain pen a 
moment, Betty.” 

She hurriedly scribbled across a sheet of paper, 
tore it across, folded it and gave it to Edith. 

“What was your roommate to do?” Leila asked 
suspiciously. “Perhaps I ought to go round and 
see if any more such slips were distributed,” and 
she looked uncertainly at Betty. 

“Jessie’s slip was easy,” volunteered Edith. 
“She had to go to bed at once.” 

Bobby giggled, and just then the lights went 
out. 

“Libbie had that order last year,” snickered 
Bobby. “She was too mad to speak.” 


TWO NEW TEACHERS 


53 

Edith pattered off, clutching her new slip, but 
Leila lingered. 

“Betty,” she whispered, confident that Miss 
Prettyman was somewhere near and likely to 
interrupt them at any moment, “I know who 
wrote that silly slip. It was Ada Nansen. I 
asked her to do one for Edith Ames, because 
none of the girls knew her very well and I thought 
Ada was friendly with her. She must have 
known better than to do a thing like that.” 

Bobby snorted. Luckily Miss Prettyman did 
not hear her. 

“Know better?” she scoffed. t4 Ada knows less 
the longer she stays here.” 

“Well,” said Leila doubtfully, opening the 
door softly, “I’ll never be able to thank you 
enough, Betty. If that crazy girl had paddled 
across the lake at this time of night, the Academy 
watchman would have caught her and there would 
have been a beautiful scrape. Mrs. Eustice holds 
the seniors responsible for everything the Mys¬ 
terious Four does. The wildest order we ever 
give is that one for the water tower. You had it 
last year and Mary Morris has it to-night.” 

“Allow me to remind you that it is now half¬ 
past eleven,” the clear, cold voice of Miss Pretty¬ 
man broke in. “Leila Grover, you know as well 
as I do that the privilege of lights till eleven was 
a special concession, and to abuse it—” 


54 


BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 


“I’m going,” said Leila hastily. “I’m going 
this minute, Miss Prettyman. Good-night, Betty 
and Bobby. If I hear a crash you’ll know I’ve 
missed my footing and fallen downstairs in the 
dark.” 

Betty and Bobby undressed in silence, each 
busy with her own thoughts. 

“Say, Betty,” whispered Bobby, after they were 
both in bed, “do you know what I think? I’ll 
bet Ada Nansen tried to get Edith in wrong. 
She’s still as mad as hops that she and Ruth 
couldn’t have that room, and she blames Edith. 
She pretends to be friends with her, but she’s 
just waiting a chance to give her a dig.” 

“Uh-huh,” yawned Betty sleepily, but she her¬ 
self had had a similar thought. 

A couple of mornings after the initiation a 
ripple of excitement went through the dining¬ 
room as the girls assembled for breakfast. Betty 
and her chums occupied a table together, as they 
had during their first term, and it was Constance 
Howard who brought them the “news.” 

“Don’t look now,” she said, as she slipped into 
her place opposite Louise; “but by and by take a 
peep at the teachers’ tables. The new teachers 
are there!” 

The teachers sat by themselves at four tables 
grouped near the windows on one side of the 
room. The girls took elaborate pains not to 


TWO NEW TEACHERS 55 

stare, but during the meal one by one they man¬ 
aged to glance over at the strangers. 

“Don’t say a word,” commanded Betty hur¬ 
riedly, as Bobby seemed to be bursting with the 
desire for speech. “For pity’s sake, keep still till 
we go out. Louise, have you done that transla¬ 
tion?” 

But if Betty acted kindly, others were not so 
considerate. Gradually a buzz rose in the room, 
and it was easy to guess what the subject of the 
quickened conversation was. The two new 
teachers seated at the table with Mrs. Eustace 
were not like any women who had taught, or were 
teaching, at Shadyside. 

“Flow awful looking they are!” exclaimed 
Bobby, when at last she was free to speak. 

They were up in their rooms, collecting their 
books for the first recitation which would follow 
immediately after morning assembly. 

“Why, one of them is all scarred!” Libbie’s 
voice rose shrilly. “Betty, did you see her face 
and hands?” 

“Yes, I saw them,” answered Betty. “Come 
on, or we’ll be late.” 

“I’d hate to be scarred like that,” Libbie in¬ 
sisted, giving a satisfied glance at her own peachy 
skin as she passed a glass in the corridor. 

“Well, Miss Nevins probably isn’t rejoicing 


56 BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

over her looks,” remarked Bobby rather sarcas¬ 
tically. 

“Is that her name?” asked Ada Nansen, com¬ 
ing out of her room, her books under her arm. 

“The one with all the scars is Miss Harriet 
Nevins and the other is named Martha,” Bobby 
explained. “They’re sisters. Miss Harriet takes 
Miss Sharpe’s place and Miss Martha substi¬ 
tutes for Miss Lacey.” 

“Thank goodness we don’t have to have a 
face like that for our corridor teacher,” said 
Ada frankly. “Though I must say Miss Martha 
is no beauty. Did you ever see such clothes as 
they both wear? They look as though they’d 
shut their eyes and pulled something out of the 
missionary barrel and put it on.” 

Practically all the talk of the girls gathering 
for assembly was of the two new teachers. Little 
of the conversation was complimentary. The 
Nevins sisters were undeniably plain, and the 
scarred face of Miss Harriet was drawn into deep 
lines that gave her a curiously doleful expression. 
They had pale eyes, sand-colored hair, brushed 
back into tidy, unfashionable knots, and their 
clothes, while neat, were, in their way, as sad and 
hopeless as the wearers. 

“Where did Mrs. Eustice get any one like 
that?” puzzled Ada, chewing a nougat thought¬ 
fully as she waited for Ruth Royal to write her 


TWO NEW TEACHERS 


57 

a list of French verbs. Ada and Ruth were for¬ 
ever helping each other and, odd to say, neither 
was ever known to be fully prepared for any 
recitation. 

“Oh, Mrs. Eustice gets queer ideas some¬ 
times,” Ruth replied carelessly. “I suppose 
they’re sharks about teaching. History and Latin 
are enough to make any one queer. I’m glad we 
won’t have to recite to Mrs. Eustice. She marks 
you as though she thought you ought to spend all 
your study time on her one subject.” 

When the girls met Miss Harriet Nevins in the 
Latin class—for Betty and her chums this fol¬ 
lowed directly after assembly—they found little 
reason to alter their first impressions. The 
teacher was pleasant, but not magnetic. Perhaps 
the consciousness of her terribly scarred face and 
hands prevented her from displaying a more cor¬ 
dial manner. She seemed a little stiff—“stand¬ 
offish,” the girls called it—and while she was 
patience itself with bunglers, she made no com¬ 
ment on an especially brilliant translation given 
by Louise, who was the student of the Littell 
family. Miss Sharpe would have praised and 
upbraided and rallied her girls twenty times in 
the course of a forty-five minute recitation. 

“Just plain queer,” was the verdict of the 
changing Latin classes, and the judgment filtered 


58 BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

through the school as school girl verdicts always 
do. 

“Her sister can’t be any worse than Miss 
Prettyman for corridor teacher,” Bobby declared 
soberly, as they left the Latin class for an English 
recitation. 

Miss Martha Nevins, the Shadyside girls de¬ 
cided, after reciting to her in history, might be 
an excellent corridor teacher, but her personality 
was almost as colorless as that of Miss Harriet. 
To be sure, she was a trifle more animated and 
she reproved Ada sharply for covert whispering, 
but, as Bobby complained, she apparently looked 
upon her pupils as so many empty jugs to be 
filled with a puree of facts and dates. 

“She keeps pouring ’em in,” complained Bobby, 
“and I feel that it’s only the ringing of the bell 
that prevents her from drowning us. She doesn’t 
stop to ask if we’re soaking up her streams of 
knowledge, or if it’s merely running out of us 
through the cracks.” 

“Betty, you can’t deny she is queer, can you?” 
demanded Libbie. “She hasn’t a romantic vein-^= 
not one!” 

“I never was crazy about romantic people my¬ 
self,” Bobby asserted. She never lost a chance 
to snub Libbie; for her own good, she was careful 
to explain. 

“Betty, both of them are queer—why won’t 


TWO NEW TEACHERS 


59 

you admit it?” Norma Guerin said a week later. 
“I don’t want to be horrid, but I never saw too 
less attractive teachers in my life! Even the 
girl who teaches the grade school at home has 
more charm, and I don’t suppose she is half so 
well educated.” 

Betty looked troubled. 

“I don’t think it’s fair to talk as we do,” she 
protested slowly. “What do we know about 
Miss Harriet or Miss Martha? Little enough— 
a few recitations with them, a week or two with 
Miss Martha as corridor teacher. They are new 
to our ways, and it can’t be very easy to have to 
make the acquaintance of one hundred and sixty 
girls at once. Let’s wait a little while and play 
fair.” 

“That’s what you learn from your Uncle Dick,” 
said Bobby shrewdly, but she criticised the two 
new teachers a little more gently after that. 

“Extra!” shouted Bobby, a few weeks after 
this, bursting in upon a “mending meeting” held 
in the Guerins’ room. Bobby never had any 
clothes to mend herself; she handed them over 
to Louise. 

“Extra!” she cried again. “All about the trag¬ 
edy that’s going to happen! Extra!” 


CHAPTER VIII 


“when the cat's away” 

Alice Guerin looked up from a bit of ex¬ 
quisite sewing. Alice loved needlework. 

“You’re the greatest girl, Bobby, to get hold 
of news,” she observed. “I never saw your equal. 
What have you discovered now?” 

“Keep off the bed,” warned Norma. “Oh, 
Bobby, please!” 

“I’ll spread it up again all nice and smooth,” 
Bobby promised, curling herself up at the foot 
of Norma’s bed and smiling her disarming grin. 
“Honest, Norma, I have to be comfortable.” 

“Well, go ahead and give us the news,” said 
Norma resignedly. “What happened?” 

“Nothing yet. But wait!” Bobby whispered 
mysteriously. “Wait and see!” 

Seven girls reached for seven articles of suffi¬ 
ciently light weight to hurl easily. Bobby saw the 
concerted action. 

“I’ll tell,” she surrendered. “Put that pillow 
down, Betty. I’ll tell everything I know. Mrs. 
Eustice is going away!” 

60 






“WHEN THE CAT’S AWAY” 6l 

“Not so good,” remarked the slangy Coh- 
stance. 

“Miss Prettyman is going with her!” 

“Add that to my list of Thanksgiving bless¬ 
ings,” commented Louise with a wave of her 
needle. 

Betty had been watching Bobby’s face. 

“What are you holding back?” she demanded 
sternly. “Out with it all, Bobby.” 

“You’d make a good detective,” grumbled her 
chum. “Well, if you must know, Miss Martha 
Nevins is going to be in charge.” 

“In charge?” echoed Libbie. “In charge of 
what?” 

“The school, goosie,” Bobby retorted. “And 
if any one wants my opinion, they may have it in 
three words: It’s a mistake. Miss Martha isn’t 
capable of handling the school. The girls will 
walk all over her.” 

“Bobby, I don’t think you have a right to say 
that,” Betty said a little indignantly. “Don’t 
you suppose Mrs. Eustice trusts us to behave 
ourselves in her absence ? If you feel like walking 
over any one, just confine your efforts to Tommy 
Tucker—he’ll stand for it.” 

Bobby put out her tongue, but she said no more 
about the ability of Miss Martha Nevins to 
direct the affairs of the school. Instead, she 
answered the questions of the girls who were 


62 BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

curious about the source of her information. 
Bobby’s revelations usually proved to be correct, 
but how and when and where she learned the 
facts she distributed was a never-ending mystery. 

“Miss Anderson told me,” she announced now. 
“I had to go down to the gym to explain my 
absence from gym class this morning. Madame 
held me over a class, you know, to tell me my 
French when I am impudent is better than when 
I’m using polite conversation—” 

“Were you impudent?” asked Libbie, round¬ 
eyed. 

“No, just ‘fresh,’ ” Bobby answered cheerfully. 
“Well, of course I had to placate Miss Anderson, 
and she set me pulling weights for fifteen minutes 
and then her conscience smote her and she became 
confidential and told me about Mrs. Eustice. She 
has to be gone several weeks, I believe. Some 
business in New York.” 

“I don’t suppose you have any more news?” 
Constance Howard suggested. 

Bobby nodded, enjoying the attention imme¬ 
diately centered on her. 

“Ada Nansen,” she declared, kicking her heels 
on Norma’s counterpane with true Bobby-reck¬ 
lessness, “and Ruth Gladys Royal have to study 
the rest of this week in the study hall. That’s 
what they get for interfering with the two little 


“WHEN THE CAT’S AWAY” 63 

freshmen—what are their names? Edith Ames 
is one.” 

“She rooms with Jessie Wood,” Betty said. 
“What did Ada do to them?” 

“Oh, had them in her room during study hours 
and talked so much no one could get any study¬ 
ing done,” Bobby returned. “Miss Martha put 
the blame on the sophomores and sent them to 
the hall; but unless Edith and Jessie get better 
reports next week they’ll have to go down, too.” 

“Do you know what I think?” said Libbie 
seriously. “I think Miss Martha has heard some¬ 
thing about being easy—I mean something the 
girls have said—and if we don’t look out she’ll 
go the other way and be too strict for words. 
Miss Harriet is giving out more outside work 
than Miss Sharpe ever did so early in the term.” 

The next day Bobby’s advance report was con¬ 
firmed by Mrs. Eustice herself in morning assem¬ 
bly. In a brief speech the principal told the girls 
that important business had called her to New 
York, that Miss Prettyman was accompanying 
her, and that Miss Martha Nevins would be in 
charge of the school till her return. 

“I expect to be gone two weeks, not longer,” 
Mrs. Eustice announced. “I trust to your spirit 
of friendship and cooperation to help Miss 
Nevins in every way. The normal schedules are 


64 BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

to be rigidly followed, and I expect to have excel¬ 
lent reports of you when I return.” 

“I never heard of anything so crazy in my life!” 
scolded Ada Nansen, as the girls filed out of the 
assembly room. “Why does Mrs. Eustice pick 
on a woman like that to have charge of the school? 
I won’t stand for it, that’s all there is to it! 
Mrs. Eustice must be losing her mind.” 

“My goodness, you can get worked up over 
anything, can’t you?” Bobby said curiously. 
“What difference does it make who is in charge?” 

“Why, we want a woman with a presence,” 
explained Ada, waving her hands as she talked— 
Bobby detested mannerisms of any kind. “Shady- 
side is a cultured school, and we’re used to having 
teachers with dignity and character. And I’d be 
ashamed to have any of the Academy boys come 
over and see Miss Martha in that brown dress 
she wears. Our cook looks better than she does.” 

“I think the less Ada Nansen says about pres¬ 
ence and character the better,” Bobby declared, 
reporting the conversation to Betty during the 
French class. “She always reminds me of some¬ 
thing that has been veneered and shows the real 
shoddiness through the cracks. She can’t do 
one thing I honestly admire.” 

“Yes, she can,” flashed Betty. “She can sing. 
Have you heard her this term? She practiced 


“WHEN THE CAT’S AWAY” 65 

this summer, and, Bobby, her voice is the love¬ 
liest thing you ever heard.” 

“Well, that’s a gift; she isn’t responsible for 
it,” Bobby insisted, unwilling to concede anything 
in Ada’s favor. 

Mrs. Eustice and Miss Prettyman left on a 
morning train, serenely unaware of the seething 
discontent they left behind them. Unfortunately, 
neither of the new teachers possessed a forcible 
personality and, what was worse, they seemed to 
lack confidence in themselves. Miss Elarriet, espe¬ 
cially sensitive about her appearance, made no 
move to gain the good-will of the girls. She was 
an excellent teacher, but her discipline was not 
firm and she instinctively seemed anxious to avoid 
any clash. She would resolutely hold Libbie to a 
specified amount of outside work, keeping her an 
hour after class if necessary, but only a heightened 
color answered Ada’s deliberate ignoring of her 
rules. 

“As long as you do your work you can get away 
with murder,” Libbie complained. “I’ve a good 
mind to let Timmie do all my work for me and 
concentrate on vaudeville stunts like Ada and 
Ruth to while away the Latin period. 

“You let me catch you copying them!” warned 
Bobby. “As it is I should think you’d be ashamed 
to have Timothy Derby do your lessons for you.” 


66 BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

“Latin is all he does,” Libbie answered calmly* 
“He says it’s good practice for him.” 

“What I want to know,” fumed Bobby, “is 
how does she get the papers over to Timothy and 
back again?” 

“I don’t know. But she’ll tell us some day if 
we don’t ask,” Betty replied confidently. “Frances 
ought to help her now and then and she wouldn’t 
get discouraged and ask Timmie to do her stuff.” 

Miss Martha Nevins, her plain, kind face more 
wearily lined than ever, did her best to see that 
everything went smoothly. She had the loyal 
support of the teaching faculty and of the serv¬ 
ants, for she was courteous and considerate of all 
with whom she came in contact. It did seem that 
fate was unnecessarily trying when Aunt Nancy, 
the head cook, came to report that she had to go 
South to see her daughter at once. 

“That girl sent for me, and I just got to go,” 
Aunt Nancy declared. “I sure am sorry to leave 
you like this, Miss Martha, but I’ll send you a 
friend to take my place till I get back. Yes’m, 
Judy will do fine and you won’t miss me t’all. 
I’m a mother, and us mothers can’t hear our 
children calling in vain.” 

“Shucks!” was Miss Anderson’s comment on 
this touching sentiment. “Aunt Nancy sees a 
chance to go make a visit while Mrs. Eustice is 
away, and she is making the most of it. There’s 


“WHEN THE CAT’S AWAY” 67 

nothing the matter with her daughter—she spent 
the summer with her. Mrs. Eustice holds her 
strictly to her contract, and you’re foolish if you 
don’t do the same.” 

“I could never forgive myself if I kept her here 
and her daughter needed her,” said Miss Martha 
solemnly. “Besides, she is sending me a woman 
to take her place. Judy, I think she called her.” 

“I hope she can cook,” Miss Anderson sighed. 
“I have misgivings. Good cooks are seldom to 
be had with so little trouble.” 

Miss Anderson’s doubts proved well founded. 
Aunt Nancy left and in her stead arrived a tall, 
raw-boned colored woman who was, she informed 
Miss Martha, suffering with a “lil neuritis in 
mah arm.” She suffered a different ailment with 
the dawn of each new day and her face was per¬ 
petually bound up in a piece of red flannel, a 
decoration that made her far from prepossessing 
to behold. 

Judy may have been able to cook when she 
felt well, but, if so, her physical troubles had a 
dreadful effect on her culinary skill. 

“I just don’t seem to take no interest in getting 
up meals no more,” she told one of the waitresses. 
“I been on a diet so long I don’t care if I never 
eat again.” 

“But we care,” stormed Bobby, who heard this. 


68 BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

“We haven’t the lumbago and the misery and 
neuritis and rheumatism.” 

“We’ve had boiled potatoes every night and 
for lunch for three days,” Libbie complained. 
“Doesn’t she know any other way to cook them?” 

“Don’t be so fussy,” Betty said good-hum¬ 
oredly. “If you’d lived out in the oil fields, as I 
have, you wouldn’t be so ready to find fault with 
your meals. The men out there live on canned 
beans the year round, I think. I know they’re a 
staple article of diet.” 

But even Betty could not honestly excuse the 
quality and the quantity of the food that fol¬ 
lowed the introduction of Judy into the school 
kitchen. The meals grew worse daily. Miss 
Anderson, investigating, found that Miss Martha 
was allowing Judy to do the marketing, and she 
suspected that the cook was putting much of the 
market money into her own pocket. 

“But Miss Martha won’t hurt her feelings by 
such an accusation,” Miss Anderson told Betty, 
to whom she sometimes spoke confidentially, 
sure that what she asked to be kept secret would 
not be repeated to one other girl. 

“I’m going to start something and start it 
nowl” Ada Nansen exclaimed angrily, after a 
meager dinner. 


CHAPTER IX 


ADA’S PETITION 

‘‘Did you hear what Ada said?” whispered 
Bobby, as the girls left the dining-room. “I 
don’t know that I blame her. I never in all my 
life sat down to a meal like that. Some one 
ought to write to Mrs. Eustice.” 

Betty shook her head. 

“Oh, come now, Betty, you needn’t tell me you 
approve of the way things are being run!” Bobby 
protested, as she toiled upstairs after her chum. 
“Nothing fit to eat and lessons being piled onto 
us till it’s a wonder we don’t come down with 
brain fever.” 

Betty opened the door of their room and 
laughed as she snapped on the table light. 

“You won’t get brain fever, Bobby,” she said 
affectionately. “I’m not worrying about that.” 

“Well, if you’re such a stickler for fairness, 
answer me this,” Bobby flung at her. “Do you 
think it’s fair to stop Friday night dancing in 
the gym because so many have flunked in history 
and Latin?” 


6 9 


70 


BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 


“No, I don’t think it’s fair at all,” answered 
Betty promptly. “I think it is a perfect shame. 
But, Bobby, can’t you see that the reason Miss 
Martha and Miss Harriet are piling lessons on 
us is because that’s the one way they care to dis¬ 
cipline us? Every one is doing exactly as she 
pleases. Ada went to Edentown to-day and never 
asked permission, and Ruth Royal has had three 
boxes from home in one week, and two a month 
is the limit.” 

“And you cut gym class and went to the football 
game,” Bobby inserted neatly. 

“Well, if I did,” said Betty, blushingly but 
honestly, “I paid for it. Bob brought me home 
the minute the game was over and read me a 
lecture all the way across the lake on how to 
behave in Mrs. Eustice’s absence. He said that 
when she was here I could go as far as I liked 
and take the consequences. But he wasn’t going 
to stand for any funny work when we were left 
on our honor. I felt about as big as a dried pea 
when he finished with me.” 

“The boys seem to know a lot about what is 
going on over here,” Bobby commented. “Tommy 
told me that what we needed was a colonel with 
an iron glove on one hand and a carpet beater 
in the other.” 

“Miss Anderson doesn’t feel the need of an 
iron glove,” said Betty. “She gave me an extra 


ADA’S PETITION 


71 


fifteen minutes of gym for the rest of the week. 
I don’t see why Mrs. Eustice didn’t leave Miss 
Anderson in charge of the school. She’s a dear, 
but she doesn’t let any one walk on her.” 

“Maybe she wouldn’t take the responsibility,” 
Bobby hazarded shrewdly. 

“What a racket there is in the corridor,” said 
Betty, pulling a book toward her and opening 
it at the next day’s lesson. “Stick your head out, 
like a good child, Bobby, and see if you see any 
excitement.” 

Bobby immediately peered into the corridor. 

“Regular parade,” she reported. “All going 
into Ada’s room. Ada has plenty of nerve, hasn’t 
she? Miss Martha sent her and Ruth to the 
study hall to do their work,” 

“I wonder what that girl is up to,” Betty 
speculated. “I think we ought to listen in, Bobby. 
What do you say?” 

“I say I couldn’t begin to finish up one-half 
the advance translation Miss Harriet gave us to¬ 
day, so why even start?” said Bobby, gazing dis¬ 
consolately at her pile of books. “Let’s go and 
hear the good word. There go Edith Ames and 
Jessie Wood.” 

“Libbie isn’t in her room, so she must be there, 
too,” Betty declared, after a glance into Libbie’s 
room had shown her Frances Martin studying 


72 BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

in solitary bliss. “Hurry up, Frances—we’re go¬ 
ing calling.” 

Frances joined them, rather reluctantly, and 
they gathered up Norma and Alice Guerin and 
Louise and Constance on their way down to 
Ada’s room, which was near the head of the 
stairs. 

“Ada should have rented the study hall,” snick¬ 
ered Bobby, as they wedged themselves inside 
the door of the already overcrowded room. 

Ada and Ruth Gladys sat at the table and 
girls filled every other inch of available space. 
They perched in the window seat and on the 
bed and on Ada’s dresser. Betty and her chums 
stood for the simple reason that every chair was 
occupied and most of the floor space was taken 
by early comers who had seated themselves more 
or less comfortably in uneven rows. 

“We’re not going to endure this situation any 
longer,” Ada said defiantly, addressing herself 
directly to Betty as soon as she saw her. 

“What situation, Ada?” Betty asked quietly. 

“I don’t think we ought to put up with Miss 
Martha Nevins any longer,” said Ada earnestly 
“It shows we’re weak and haven’t any backbone. 
She’s killing us with lessons and there hasn’t been 
a decent meal for a week and the school is simply 
going to ruin.” 


ADA’S PETITION 


73 

“What are you going to do about it?” struck 
in Bobby belligerently. 

“Ask for her removal,” Ada announced im¬ 
pressively. “Ruth wrote out a petition, and it’s 
all ready to sign.” 

“But what will you do with a petition?” asked 
Betty. “You can’t present it to Mrs. Eustice till 
she comes back and then it will be useless; she 
will be in charge herself.” 

Ada set her pretty lips in a straight line. 

“I’m going to present this petition where it 
will do some good,” she said. “I’m going to hand 
it to Miss Martha as soon as it is signed. Then 
she’ll know how we feel about her.” 

Into Betty’s dark eyes leaped a sudden spark. 
Her cheeks flushed scarlet. 

“Ada!” she cried, her voice low and trembling 
with anger. “You wouldn’t dare!” 

Ruth Gladys Royal mistook the trembling for 
timidity. She laughed. 

“Ada isn’t afraid of Miss Martha,” she said 
confidently. 

“Afraid of Miss Martha!” repeated Betty 
scornfully. “Perhaps not. But I should think, 
Ada Nansen, you’d be afraid to do a thing like 
that to a woman whose worst fault is that she 
is too gentle! It wouldn’t be so bad—though I 
think it’s outrageous any way you look at it— 
if Miss Martha could fight back. But she won’t. 


74 


BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 


You’ll hurt her pride, and she’ll never get over 
it At least have the decency to wait till Mrs. 
Eustice comes back, can’t you?” 

“I don’t think we’re to blame if Miss Martha 
and Miss Harriet haven’t the power to compel 
our respect,” said Dora Estabrooke mildly. 

“If you send that petition, Ada,” declared 
Betty seriously, “you’ll always regret it. You can’t 
be so cruel and so heartless and not be sorry 
afterward.” 

“Anyway, I don’t believe the girls will be 
chumps enough to sign it,” Norma Guerin ob¬ 
served. 

“Oh, won’t they?” retorted Ada. “Libbie Lit- 
tell said she would—didn’t you, Libbie?” 

Bobby turned on her cousin in a blaze of wrath. 

“If I hear of you putting your name on a paper 
like that—” she threatened. 

“I guess I can do as I please,” interrupted 
Libbie weakly. 

“You promised,” Ada reminded her. “You 
can’t go back on your promise. And Edith Ames 
and Jessie Wood, and you, too, Dora. I’ve got 
a pen right here.” 

She named a dozen other girls, all lacking in 
what Bobby called “pep” and all without definite 
opinions of their own. With a feeling of hope¬ 
lessness Betty realized that Ada had never lacked 
followers among these girls, and now she was 


ADA’S PETITION 


75 

capitalizing their allegiance. She was a leader 
of the weak and the vague, but their names on a 
petition would be as imposing as the names of 
girls with fine principles and high ideals. 

“If you sign that paper, Libbie,” Bobby sput¬ 
tered, “not one more cent do you get from me 
this term. I mean it! You ought to be ashamed 
of yourself! How long have you been a friend 
of Ada Nansen’s?” 

Libbie was always in debt. She spent her al¬ 
lowance weeks in advance, and she depended on 
the generosity of her chums to keep her in cash. 
Mrs. Eustice flatly refused to pay an allowance 
one day before it was due. 

“I’ll lend you as much as you want, Libbie,” 
said Ada. 

Libbie’s unhappy glance wandered to Betty. 
Edith Ames, at the table, was signing her name 
to the petition. 

“Oh, my dear!” said Betty softly. 

“I won’t sign it. I’ve changed my mind,” Lib¬ 
bie announced boldly. 

“Well, of course that is your privilege,” mur¬ 
mured Ada, an unpleasant edge to her tone. “But 
I know a number of things that will interest Mrs. 
Eustice when she returns-” 

Libbie looked frightened. She reached out her 
hand for the pearl and gold pen. 

“After that you can’t sign it,” said Betty 



7 6 BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

sternly. “I don’t know what Ada is talking about, 
but I understand blackmailing when I hear it. 
Mrs. Eustice will be home in a week, and I think 
the sensible thing to do is to wait. A week won’t 
make much difference, Ada.” 

Some of the girls murmured eagerly. They did 
not want to be “mean” and they thought they 
could stand one more week without fainting from 
starvation or dropping from mental exhaustion. 
Those who had already signed the paper joined 
in this view of the situation, and Ada finally con¬ 
sented to a delay. 

“I’ll wait a week, and then, if Mrs. Eustice 
isn’t back, nothing can stop me,” she declared. 
“I think the truth is, you’re afraid. Betty Gor¬ 
don has made you think something will happen. 
I detest people who are afraid to stick to their 
word.” 

Libbie escaped to her own room ahead of the 
rest and was studying fast and furiously when 
Frances found her. If she thought that Betty 
would follow and ask her questions, Libbie was 
doomed to disappointment. Betty left her se¬ 
verely alone for the study hour and did not refer 
to Ada’s insinuations when they met at breakfast 
the next morning. 


CHAPTER X 


POOR MISS HARRIET 

True to her word, Ada waited for a week, 
a long week in which the food grew poorer in 
quality and, if possible, less in quantity. Betty’s 
Uncle Dick had sent her a box of good things, 
and Ada remarked that any one could counsel 
patience with half a dozen jars of jam stored 
away, not to mention cookies and a pound cake. 

“You make me so tired, Ada Nansen,” scolded 
Bobby. “Betty made that box go as far as pos¬ 
sible. Every girl in our corridor got some of it. 
I know she gave you and Ruth a box of the cook¬ 
ies. You ought to be ashamed of yourself!” 

“I hate cocoanut cookies,” flared Ada, whose 
nerves were decidedly “edgy.” 

“I’m going to give that petition to Miss Martha 
to-morrow,” she added. “I have twenty names 
signed to it.” 

Bobby looked scornful. 

“You’ll never hear the end of it, if you do,” 
she said. “Half the words are misspelled and a 
kindergarten child could have written it better.” 

77 


7 S BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

So saying, she dashed into her room and banged 
the door after her, to relieve her feelings. Betty, 
searching for a tie in her bureau, reproached her 
mutely. 

“You needn’t look at me like that, Betty Gor¬ 
don,” Bobby declared hardily. “I’ve had a run-in 
with Ada again. But I’ll bet I’ve made her pause. 
I told her that petition would make any one laugh 
—the spelling and the writing, I mean.” 

“What’s the matter with it?” asked Betty curi¬ 
ously. “I never examined it.” 

“Well, neither have I,” Bobby admitted. “But 
I took a chance. If Ruth Gladys Royal wrote it, 
I know half the words are misspelled.” 

Betty laughed as she slipped a golden brown 
tie through the collar of her pongee blouse and 
noted the effect with pleasure. 

“Where did you pick up that trick?” she in¬ 
quired interestedly. 

“Tommy Tucker,” Bobby returned. “He’s al¬ 
ways taking chances, and about one third of them 
come out right. If he can have a ‘hunch,’ so 
can I.” 

Bobby’s “hunch” in Ada’s case was remark¬ 
ably effective. Ada had a horror of ridicule and 
she distrusted Ruth’s ability to spell, as well she 
might. So she tore up the petition and set about 
making new plans. 

Betty, hurrying to a recitation the next day, 


POOR MISS HARRIET 


79 

stumbled over a figure seated in a shadowy corner, 

“Miss Harriet!” cried Betty, in amazement. 
“Did I hurt you?” 

She never forgot the eyes that were raised to 
hers—faded blue eyes with hurt and shame and 
something like panic lying heavy in them. 

“No, no, of course you didn’t hurt me, Betty,” 
the teacher answered a little wildly. “I—I just 
sat down to rest. I think I was tired.” 

Betty stared, wishing she could think of some¬ 
thing tactful to say. 

“Betty, listen to me!” Miss Harriet said, with 
sudden energy. “Do you think this dress is the 
most horrible thing you ever saw? Would you 
be ashamed to have your cook look as I do?” 

Over Betty’s expressive face swept a great 
wave of color. Poor Miss Harriet! What had 
she heard? 

“Oh, you needn’t answer,” the teacher said 
bitterly. “You needn’t say a word. I understand. 
Probably there isn’t a girl in this school who 
doesn’t shrink from me—from my scarred face 
and my plain dress. We were never anything 
but homely, Martha and I, but we were never 
in such cruel contrast before—with young and 
lovely girls all about us and their standards of 
dress and leisure and wealth. We made a mis¬ 
take in coming. But what could we do ?” 

“Please!” begged Betty, “please, Miss Har- 


So BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 


riet, don’t feel like that. If some of the girls 
have been unkind-” 

“You’ll be late for recitation,” Miss Harriet 
interrupted coldly. “Run along, Betty. I’m nerv¬ 
ous this morning and don’t mean what I’m saying 
at all.” 

Betty obediently went on, was late for French 
and drew down upon her the wrath of Madame, 
whose quick temper was already sorely tried by 
the events of the last two weeks. 

“You sit there and dream, Betty Gordon,” the 
excitable French woman stormed, for Betty, truth 
to tell, was thinking more of her encounter with 
Miss Harriet in the hall than of Madame’s re¬ 
proof. 

“You sit there and dream,” said Madame again, 
raising her voice. “I ask you to listen to me! 
I will not have my class interrupted! I tell you, 
I will not. You may take your books and to the 
study hall go, and your mark this period will be 
nothings!” 

“That’s not fair,” said Betty to herself, gath¬ 
ering up her books and making her way to the 
study hall. “Mrs. Eusitce hates that way of pun¬ 
ishing, too. Madame never even asked me what 
made me late. Oh, dear, this whole school is go¬ 
ing crazy. I wish Mrs. Eustice would come back.” 

Miss Anderson was in charge of the study hall 



POOR MISS HARRIET 8l 

and she merely raised her eyebrows disapprovingly 
as Betty slipped into a vacant seat. 

“She’s cross, too,” Betty thought gloomily. “If 
I don’t see Bob this afternoon, I’ll have the blues. 
He has the kind of temper I can understand— 
when he’s mad, it’s because there is something 
to be mad about. Temperament,” she informed 
herself vigorously, flipping open a French gram¬ 
mar and glaring at the letters that danced before 
her eyes, “is my idea of nothing at all to be proud 
of.” 

When the corrior bells rang for the change 
of classes, Betty went to Miss Martha’s room 
for her history lesson. Very sad and discouraged 
and extremely plain Miss Martha looked, and her 
dress did nothing to make her more attractive. 
Both she and her sister seemed to possess a fatal 
gift for selecting the wrong colors and lines, and 
a small town dressmaker had evidently done her 
best to contribute to the sorry whole. Betty be¬ 
gan to plan to “make over” Miss Martha, and 
she was at work upon a hat for her when she saw 
Bobby signaling to her frantically. 

“Are you prepared, or are you not?” came the 
clear, cold tones of Miss Martha’s voice. 

Betty tumbled her brown and blue velvet and 
the hackle feather trimming out of her mind, but 
unfortunately nothing took its place. She had not 
the slightest idea of how far the history recitation 


82 BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

had progressed. There was nothing to do but 
take refuge in failure. 

“I’m not prepared,” she said curtly. 

Miss Martha’s lips tightened. In a few crisp 
words she imposed a penalty that was far stiffer 
than even her usual exacting requirements and 
which was patently “unfair,” judged by the school 
traditions and rules. A little murmur ran through 
the room and Ada Nansen flung a triumphant 
glance at Betty. 

“Now are you satisfied?” she whispered. “I 
hope you’ll get enough of playing patient martyr 
soon.” 

Betty was smarting under a sense of injustice, 
but she kept still, accepting the sympathy of her 
chums at luncheon—which followed the history 
period—without expressing any definite opinion. 
Not that she was “resigned to fate,” as Libbie 
delicately hinted, but her thoughts went past the 
episode of the morning and recalled the tired 
faces of the two sisters as she had seen them at 
the chapel services the Sunday before. Gray and 
drab and utterly discouraged—that look came 
back to Betty now. 

The afternoon promised a break, for it was a 
day when, after a forty-five minute period in the 
gymnasium, the girls were free till dinner time. 
They were encouraged to spend this free time 


POOR MISS HARRIET 83 

out of doors, and usually the lake and the grounds 
of the school were the attractions. 

Betty had to give an extra fifteen minutes of 
weight pulling after gymnasium class as part pen¬ 
alty for her attendance at the football game, and 
she found herself in the locker room alone when 
she was ready to change her shoes. 

“I knew we could count on you, John,” said a 
voice so close that she jumped. 

The open window, high above her head, told 
her the source of the sound. Some one was stand¬ 
ing just outside on the ground, for the locker 
room was in the basement. Betty could see two 
shadows dimly reflected on the fire-glassed win¬ 
dow which was tilted for the sake of ventilation. 

“You can count on me, Miss,” replied another 
voice, the assistant janitor’s, Betty recognized at 
once. “I know what is right and what is not 
right.” 

“Well, we’ll need help, John,” the first voice 
returned briskly. That was Ada Nansen, Betty 
decided after a moment’s thought. “We can’t 
count on Dave at all; he’s getting old and you 
can’t argue with people who are elderly.” 

“That’s true, Miss,” Towsky returned eag¬ 
erly. “Just what I’ve been saying to myself about 
McGuire. He’s set in his ways. To hear him 
talk, you’d think the school would go to ruin 


84 BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

if every ash wasn’t cleared out of the furnaces 
every day.” 

“Did you take that note?” struck in the high- 
pitched voice that belonged to Ruth Gladys Royal. 
“It was awfuly important, John. The girls are 
counting on an answer to-night.” 

“I’m going over as soon as I have my dinner 
to-night, Miss,” Towsky answered promptly. 

“And you’ll help us?” urged Ada. 

“You can count on me, Miss,” Towsky re¬ 
peated in his slow English. “Those two sisters, 
they have no place here. This is a select school 
—a place for high-grade teachers. Miss Martha 
Nevins is stingy. And Miss Harriet, she has no, 
what do you say? No ability. That is it.” 

“Well, of course you understand,” began Ada 
in a low tone that faded as she evidently turned 
and walked away. 

Betty sat, dumbfounded, a shoe in either hand. 
She had listened in a daze. So Ada would seek 
to enlist the help of a man like Towsky in her 
efforts to lead a rebellion against the two new 
teachers! 

“Towsky!” said Betty aloud. “Towsky!” 

She put on her oxford and laced it. 

“I’d believe anything of that girl now,” she 
announced, as she began on the other shoe. 

“Miss Betty!” One of the maids tapped at the 
partly opened door. “Miss Betty, are you in 


POOR MISS HARRIET 


85 

there? Mr. Bob is upstairs waiting to see you.” 

“I’ll be right up,” Betty replied energetically. 
“Have you found Miss Bobby yet, Maria?” 

“Miss Bobby?” echoed the maid. “No’m, do 
you want her?” 

“Well, I thought the boys would,” Betty ex¬ 
plained, straightening her blouse collar by jerk¬ 
ing it true, “and I know where she is.” 

“That Tucker boy, he ain’t come,” announced 
Maria, who knew the girls’ friends as well as they 
did. “Just Mr. Bob. And he asked particular 
for you.” 

“All right, I’m coming,” Betty said, with a last 
hasty glance in the tiny mirror hung over the 
locker. “Find Miss Martha and tell her I’ve gone 
for a row on the lake with him—but wait till 
I’m down at the dock!” and away she ran. 

“Bob, you lamb!” She greeted the lad with 
unconcealed enthusiasm. “I’ve had the worst 
day! Let’s go rowing and have a little fun.” 

Bob did not find her enthusiasm contagious. He 
stood still and eyed her gravely. 

“Just a minute, Betty,” he said soberly. “May¬ 
be we can go—if there is time. But I want to see 
Libbie first.” 


CHAPTER XI 


BOB BRINGS NEWS 


“Oh!” SAID Betty, surprise in her expressive 
voice. “Why, I’ll see if I can find her, Bob.” 

“Wait a minute,” Bob interposed hastily. 
“Sort of stick around, won’t you, Betty? I mean 
look in after a while—in case she cries, you know. 
I always feel like a chump when a girl cries.” 

“You do?” said Betty, laughter in her eyes. 

But her mirth faded suddenly. 

“What are you going to say to Libbie?” she 
demanded. “How can you make her cry? I won’t 
tell her you’re here if you are going to be mean 
to her, Bob Henderson.” 

Bob said exactly one word, as she had heard 
him say it a hundred times, as he had always 
spoken when she had been unreasonable or un¬ 
just. 

“Betty!” 

“I didn’t mean that, Bob,” she apologized con¬ 
tritely. “I’m sorry I was cross, but this place 
isn’t encouraging sweet tempers at present. I’ll 
go and find Libbie for you right away; only you 


BOB BRINGS NEWS 87 

don’t look as though you had something nice to 
tell her.” 

“It’s something she must hear whether she 
likes it or not,” said Bob grimly. “You needn’t 
be afraid I’ll be unfair, Betty. I’ll try to be 
patient, too. I’ve watched you and Bobby with 
Libbie, and I’ll hand you the prize for your 
method every time. Bobby jumps all over Libbie 
and makes her obstinate, but you go slow and win 
her confidence. Good Betsey, always looking out 
for the weak little sister.” 

Betty flashed him a grateful smile and went in 
search of Libbie. She found her in Edith Ames’ 
room, a box of caramels between them and a pad 
of paper in Libbie’s hand. She was, she informed 
Betty, composing a poem. 

“What you need,” announced Betty with vigor, 
“is more fresh air and less nonsense. Bob’s down 
stairs, Libbie. He wants to see you.” 

Libbie’s dark eyes were suddenly suspicious. 

“What does he want to see me for?” she de¬ 
manded almost resentfully. 

“I do not know, for I did not ask him,” Betty 
returned lightly. “Why not go down and find 
out?” 

“Are you coming?” Libbie asked, putting down 
her pad and pencil with visible reluctance. 

“In a minute,” said Betty, turning into her 


88 BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

own room and leaving Libbie to go down to the 
reception room alone. 

Fifteen minutes later, when Betty entered the 
little reception room, Libbie was sobbing into 
the sofa cushions and Bob was standing at the 
window, his back to her and the door. 

“Libbie, darling!” cried Betty, kneeling before 
the weeping girl and trying to take her in her 
arms. “Libbie, don’t cry so! What is the mat¬ 
ter?” 

Bob turned in time to catch a lightning glance 
of scorn from Betty’s dark eyes. 

“You’ve made her cry!” she said accusingly. 

“I’m sorry,” he answered very quietly. 

“It isn’t his fault,” choked Libbie, raising a 
tear-stained face. “I’m crying—I guess I’m cry¬ 
ing because I’m ashamed of myself.” 

“Oh!” said Betty, bewildered. “Are you?” 

Bob came over and sat down on the small 
damask couch beside Libbie. His face was seri¬ 
ous, but not severe. Betty had a sudden com¬ 
fortable conviction that everything was going to 
be all right. 

“Libbie,” said Bob’s kind voice, “shall we tell 
Betty? She’ll help you, and you’ll need some one 
to help you, you know.” 

Libbie nodded shamefacedly. She put out her 
hand and touched Bob’s sleeve timidly. 

“You tell her,” she whispered. 


BOB BRINGS NEWS 89 

Betty, still on her knees, put one firm, brown 
little hand over Libbie’s. 

“You tell, Bob,” she said earnestly. 

“Well, there isn’t very much to tell,” Bob de¬ 
clared. “That janitor fellow, Towsky—where 
did he get a name like that?—was caught this 
morning handing out a regular parcels-post to 
some of the cadets. There were letters and mes¬ 
sages, and when the Commandant looked ’em over 
he made the pleasant discovery that apparently 
there’s a system of translations and ‘ponies’ being 
exchanged. From what has leaked out, some of 
your girls haven’t done a lesson in a fortnight. I 
thought Timmie looked pretty sick and when, on 
my way to drill, I found a slip of paper with 
his name written across it, I knew what was the 
matter. It was from Libbie, enclosing Latin to 
be translated.” 

Betty spoke, as Libbie seemed to be speechless. 

“Where’s Timmie?” she asked. “Why didn’t 
he come over?” 

“Doing pack drill,” Bob answered drily. “His 
afternoons are engaged for the next two weeks. 
You see, two other girls sent him translations 
to do, so Libbie’s good luck didn’t save him. I 
must say Colonel Halsted has the right idea. He 
burned every scrap of paper, raked the boys fore 
and aft, and soaked them pack drill enough to 
keep them going every spare hour. He isn’t going 


BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 


90 

to make a report of any kind to Mrs. Eustice; 
says he can take care of what happens on his 
own grounds and the boys are to take their medi¬ 
cine and keep still. I came over, because-” 

Bob stopped and glanced at Libbie. 

“Well, because,” he took a fresh start, “because 
I can’t go the idea of her using a chap like this 
Towsky for a messenger. He takes her 
money-” 

“He does not!” flared Libbie, stung into speech. 
“I never gave him a cent—never!” 

“Then Ada pays him,” Betty said calmly. “He 
doesn’t do it unless some one gives him money. 
Ada has the largest allowance of any girl in 
school.” 

“All right, we’ll say that Ada pays him,” said 
Bob. “You can’t have a confederate—a go- 
between—in an underhanded affair like this and 
keep him at his distance. The mere fact that he 
knows you are willing to connive lowers you in his 
estimation. You’re an awful nice kid, Libbie, and 
I hate to see you making a—a-” 

“Fool of myself,” gulped Libbie, trying to 
smile. “I guess I’m cured, Bob. I’ll try to do 
my own translating after this, even if Miss Har¬ 
riet does pretty near kill us with work. You tell 
Timmie I’m so sorry we landed him in such a 
peck of trouble. Edith Ames and Jessie Wood 
sent him those other two slips, and I’m just as 





BOB BRINGS NEWS 


91 

much to blame, if mine was lost. Tell Timmie 
I’m sorry.” 

“I will,” Bob promised, patting her on the 
shoulder as he rose to go. “Don’t worry over 
what’s past and gone, Libbie; but do be careful 
for the future. If you’re uncertain what to do, 
you might ask Betty.” 

“Bob,” said Libbie quickly, “tell me this: If 
Betty had sent you stuff to translate, wouldn’t you 
have done it for her? Would you refuse to help 
her out when she asked you?” 

Across the pretty little room Bob met Betty’s 
eyes squarely. 

“If Betty Gordon asked me to do something 
for her, I wouldn’t have to think twice to know 
that it was on the square,” he said in what Libbie 
called his “parade” voice. “It might not be wise, 
possibly it would not be the best thing to do, but 
it would never be dishonest. Want to walk down 
to the landing with me, Betty?” he finished 
simply. 

Betty did. She felt as though the dried grass 
under her feet was a carpet of clouds on which 
she pranced light-heartedly. She could tell Bob 
now about the mishaps of the day and laugh over 
them as far as they affected herself. 

“But, Bob, this scheme of Ada’s is really seri¬ 
ous,” she said, as they came in sight of the dock 
and the canoe in which Bob had paddled across 


92 BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

the lake. “She has the weaker girls completely 
under her thumb—Ruth, of course, and Edith 
Ames and Jessie Wood. They have no minds 
of their own and never will have. And of course 
she has her own clique—Virgie Smith and Elsie 
Taylor, Violet Canby—all devoted to her. She 
did have Libbie, but thanks to you, I think we can 
count her on our side now.” 

“Libbie doesn’t like Ada,” Bob declared has¬ 
tily. “Don’t try to make me believe that.” 

“Oh, she doesn’t like her,” agreed Betty, “but 
she was afraid of her. Ada threatened her the 
night she was urging us to sign the petition, and 
I didn’t know what she meant. Now I see that 
Libbie was afraid John Towsky or Ada would tell 
Mrs. Eustice about the letters to Timmie. I 
thought Libbie confided in me, but I don’t believe 
she does.” 

“Libbie’s an idiot,” said Bob affectionately. 
“There’s only one half of her here with us and 
the other half is living in some story she happens 
to be reading. All you girls ought to keep an 
eye on her. It’s the dreamy people who do the 
foolish things when some one cracks the whip.” 

He slid easily into the canoe and took up the 
paddle. 

“Don’t look so solemn, Betsey,” he said cheer¬ 
fully, pushing off. “Libbie is all right, and a 
little pack drill will do Timmie good; he doesn‘t 


c 


BOB BRINGS NEWS 


93 

get enough outdoor exercise. And ’tis proud of 
you I am, Miss Gordon—good day to you.” 

“I wonder why Bob said that?” thought Betty, 
as she walked slowly back to the dormitory. 

She would, she decided, go directly to Libbie’s 
room, and, if she were there, coax her to come 
for a little walk before dinner. 

But when she reached Libbie’s room, Betty 
found Ada Nansen there and Ruth Gladys Royal. 

“Somebody,” exclaimed Ada angrily, as she 
saw Betty, “has been tampering with Libbie! 
She was perfectly willing to act with us this morn¬ 
ing, and now she flatly refuses.” 

The idea of “tampering” with Libbie and Lib¬ 
bie’s convictions amused Betty. She giggled. 

“Libbie had a narrow escape from suspension 
or being expelled,” she announced, sobering. 
“That may have helped her to see what you are 
asking her to do.” 

Then in a few words she outlined the news 
Bob had brought them, emphasizing the gener¬ 
osity of the colonel, which had spared the girls 
sure and drastic punishment at the hands of Mrs. 
Eustice. 

“I have nothing to do with that,” disclaimed 
Ada. “I don’t send notes to Salsette cadets.” 

“But you pay the assistant janitor who takes 
them,” said Betty quietly. 

The shot told. Ada flushed a deep crimson 


94 BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

and stalked haughtily from the room, followed 
by Ruth Gladys, her faithful shadow. 

Betty talked cheerfully to Libbie till the din¬ 
ner gong sounded and no more was said about 
the letters to Timothy Derby or Ada’s proposed 
plans for a rebellion. Towsky had spread the 
news pretty generally through the school, and 
the conversation at dinner was more animated 
than it had been since Mrs. Eustice’s departure. 
Every girl who had been concerned in the com¬ 
munications with Salsette registered a fervent vow 
never, never, never to be mixed up in an affair 
like that again. And they were loud in their 
praises of Colonel Halsted. 

While the plates were being changed for the 
salad, Ada excused herself and went up to her 
room to get a handkerchief. In a few minutes 
the girls were startled to hear wild screaming. 
It was Ada, and her voice came nearer and nearer 
as she ran down, screaming loudly each step of 
the way. 

“Burglars!” the terrified school made out as 
she burst into the dining room. “Thieves! Rob¬ 
bers ! My emerald ring is gone! And I guess a 
whole lot of other things are gone, too!” 


CHAPTER XII 


A BRIEF TRIUMPH 

One hundred and fifty-nine girls rose to 
their feet. One hundred and fifty-seven mouths 
opened to scream. Miss Martha Nevins covered 
her face with her hands while the white scars on 
her sister’s face grew a dull red as she flushed 
with terror and excitement. 

“Don’t you dare scream!” cried Betty, climb¬ 
ing up on a chair and facing the room defiantly. 
“Keep still! Shrieking doesn’t do a thing to 
help.” 

Bobby Littell reached out and clutched the 
hysterical Ada. 

“You hush up!” she commanded her rudely. 
“Don’t you know any better than to start a panic? 
Who’s robbed? What did you see?” 

Miss Anderson saw that Miss Martha Nevins 
had no intention of dominating the situation and 
that the other teachers were almost as frightened 
as their students. She left her place at the table 
and came over to Betty. 

“Try to stop crying, Ada,” she said kindly, but 

95 


q6 BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

firmly. “Girls, take your places. Finish dinner. 
I’ll go upstairs and see what has happened.” 

“Let me go with you,” Betty begged. “Oh, 
Miss Anderson, take me and Bobby.” 

“Volunteers always welcome,” replied Miss 
Anderson, with a smile. “I don’t suppose there 
is a thing to see, but hysterics calls for an in¬ 
vestigation. We’ll see if Ada’s nerves need a 
tonic.” 

Betty decided that her own nerves were not 
any too steady when they gained the upper hall. 
Bobby actually indulged in a muffled shriek and 
Miss Anderson shrank back against the wall. 
Coming across the bridge that connected the dor¬ 
mitory with the next building was the assistant 
janitor, a gleaming little revolver pointed at them. 

“So it’s you!” he muttered, but before he could 
say more some one had brushed past Miss Ander¬ 
son and the girls and with one well-directed blow 
had knocked the shining weapon from Towsky’si 
hand. It fell with a clatter on the tiled floor. 

“Let me catch you going around this place full 
o’ nervous women toting a fool gun!” growled 
Dave McGuire. “What are you doing up here, 
any way? Your place is in the engine room.” 

“I heard a noise—screams,” John Towsky ex¬ 
plained, stooping to recover his revolver. “I 
came to see.” 

“Well, you go down again—and go quick,” 


A BRIEF TRIUMPH 


97 

McGuire directed. “I’ll do any investigating 
that’s needed. And put that gun out of sight— 
don’t forget!” 

The assistant janitor slunk away and McGuire 
accompanied Miss Anderson and Betty and Bobby 
to their rooms. The moment Betty glimpsed her 
corridor she knew that Ada had not imagined 
everything. 

“All the doors are open!” she gasped in horror. 

So they were—the door of each room was flung 
back. The rooms themselves were not in great 
disorder, but the girls, trooping up from the din¬ 
ing room now and made braver by the presence 
of Dave McGuire, began to discover various 
losses. 

“My wrist watch!” said Betty. “The lovely 
one Uncle Dick gave me!” 

“My cameo pin!” This from Bobby. 

“Two twenty dollar bills! I had them in my 
handkerchief box!” wailed Ada. 

Frances Martin had lost a turquoise ring, 
highly valued because it had been her mother’s. 
Constance Howard was divided between tears 
and rage when she discovered her tiny diamond 
cross was missing. Mrs. Eustice didn’t let her 
wear it, but at least she could look at it, Con¬ 
stance said. 

“I didn’t lose a thing,” said Libbie, with sat¬ 
isfaction. 


98 BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

Violet Canby, a friend of Ada’s, reported that 
a five dollar bill had been taken from her purse. 

“It had a big red blot on it and I was afraid 
to offer it in Edentown,” she explained. “They’re 
so fussy about what they’ll accept and won’t ac¬ 
cept.” 

“Well, one of my twenty dollar bills was 
marked, too,” Ada declared. “One corner was 
cut off. I caught it in my purse and accidentally 
ripped it. I hope it brings the thief bad luck.” 

A hasty examination proved that at least seven 
rooms had been visited by the thief or thieves 
and robbed. Some of the articles taken were of 
small value but others were worth considerable 
money. 

“My beautiful wrist watch!” groaned Betty. 
“Oh, I wonder if it is gone forever!” The time¬ 
piece, of rare design, solid gold and set with tiny 
diamonds had been a recent gift from Uncle Dick 
and was prized beyond words. 

The remainder of the evening proved rather 
hectic. The girls could not settle down to study. 
After the excitement they were inclined to jump 
if a door creaked and cry out when a sudden noise 
startled them. There was much visiting between 
the various rooms and comparison of notes till, at 
eight o’clock, Miss Martha Nevins sent them in 
a body to the study hall and the assembly room. 

“I will not have my wishes ignored altogether,” 


A BRIEF TRIUMPH 


99 

she announced, a red spot burning in either cheek. 
“You will study here till nine o’clock and lights 
will go off at half past. Any girl who leaves her 
room after lights out will answer to me.” 

“Say, she’s getting up her spunk,” whispered 
Ada, as Miss Martha left the room. “I wonder 
if she’s going to telephone for detectives?” 

The next morning Miss Martha Nevins an¬ 
nounced from the assembly platform that a mes¬ 
sage had been received from Mrs. Eustice, an¬ 
nouncing that she had delayed her return for 
three days. 

“At a meeting of the faculty, held last night,” 
said Miss Martha, leaning against the pulpit 
desk as she gazed into the sea of lovely young 
faces, so few of them sympathetic toward her, “it 
was decided that, for the present, nothing is to be 
done about the robberies. If detectives are sum¬ 
moned, it means undesirable publicity for the 
school. Until Mrs. Eustice returns and her 
wishes can be consulted, we have decided not to 
act. I hardly think it necessary to caution you 
not to discuss this matter outside the school. Of 
course, you may send word to your parents.” 

“Well, that’s cool!” commented Ada, as the 
girls gathered in the locker room to make ready 
for a run outdoors at Miss Anderson’s command. 
“I must say some people take the losses of others 
very lightly!” 



100 BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

“Do you want detectives sent for?” Bobby 
asked bluntly. 

“I don’t care who is sent for,” replied Ada, 
lacing her shoes. “It doesn’t matter to me. 
Mother will send me more money the moment 
she gets my letter. But I do object to furnish¬ 
ing the Nevins sisters with the cash to buy their 
luxuries.” 

“Ada!” cried Betty desperately. “Ada! Ada! 
Do you realize what you are saying? That 
you’re really accusing Miss Martha and Miss 
Harriet of theft?” 

“Why not?” said Ada coolly. “Don’t they 
look as though they need money? I’d rather be 
asked, of course, but I don’t suppose I could con¬ 
tribute to a more needy cause.” 

“If you girls are coming out this morning—” 
Miss Anderson’s tone suggested haste and the 
girls filed out, each busy with her own thoughts. 

Ada returned from a trip to Edentown late 
that afternoon with her ideas strengthened. 

“I’d like to tell you a thing or two, Betty Gor¬ 
don,” said Ada, meeting Betty on the stairs. 
“Perhaps you won’t be so obstinate when you hear 
that your Miss Martha and Miss Harriet were 
in the post-office this afternoon.” 

Betty waited, silently. 

“They were sending money orders!” Ada an¬ 
nounced triumphantly. “Money orders, mind 


A BRIEF TRIUMPH 


IOI 


you! And I’ll bet a pound of caramels my money 
was in their purse. I happen to know they had 
to borrow from Madame last week, and it’s very 
strange they have money to send away at this 
time.” 

From that afternoon matters grew worse. Ada 
flung caution to the winds and openly announced 
that she was “through.” 

“For mercy’s sake, why doesn’t she go home?” 
demanded Bobby irritably. “If she wants to 
shake the dust of Shadyside from her feet, who 
is hindering her? I don’t think it’s necessary 
for her to stay here and rescue the rest of us.” 

“But they always do,” observed Louise quietly. 

“Who always does what?” asked Bobby, with 
curiosity. 

“Oh, the dissatisfied ones are forever trying 
to make others dissatisfied, too,” Louise ex¬ 
plained. “They won’t give up and drop out— 
they want to take an army with them. Ada is 
going to lead something, and just at present she 
has her mind set on a rebellion.” 

“She’s reckoning without Betty, then,” returned 
Bobby. “Betty has just as much determination 
as Ada and considerably more brains. And the 
girls who are backing Ada are just plain sheep. 
But they’re likely to run away from her instead 
of after.” 

But if Ada’s followers were sheep, they were 


102 BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

tasting the delight of jumping oyer the pasture 
bars. The day following Miss Martha Nevins’ 
announcement bedlam flourished in orderly 
Shadyside. Because there was no head—poor 
Miss Martha was utterly helpless as far as en¬ 
forcing discipline was concerned—the individual 
teachers became the courts of last resort. They 
threatened, they entreated, as far as they were 
able they punished, but while they were dealing 
with one offender, a half dozen sinners were pur¬ 
suing their own sweet ways. Excitable Madame 
lost her head entirely, and having vowed to spank 
Ada for an impudent retort, treated the school 
to the spectacle of a sprint from her classroom 
to Ada’s room, where the latter slammed the 
door in Madame’s face and slid the bolt. 

Miss Anderson, snap and fire in her eyes and 
voice, persuaded Madame to return to her class 
and kept her own gymnasium classes to the mark. 
For the twentieth time Betty wondered why Mrs. 
Eustice had not left the capable physical training 
teacher in charge of the school. 

It suited Ada to sing that night, and after din¬ 
ner, ignoring the study hours, she seated herself 
at the piano in the assembly room and for more 
than an hour kept the school enthralled. Her 
voice was really lovely, but she could seldom be 
persuaded to use it. Bobby had once said that 


A BRIEF TRIUMPH 


103 

Ada hated to do anything she thought would give 
some one else pleasure. 

“Perhaps she is going to be sensible,” said 
Betty hopefully, as the girls were undressing that 
night. 

“You say that, because her music breaks you all 
up,” Bobby retorted. “It doesn’t have any ef¬ 
fect on me—never did. You watch Ada Nansen 
to-morrow.” 

The suggestion was unnecessary. In the morn¬ 
ing, the moment she entered the dining-room, 
Betty sensed that something was astir. There 
was an excited hum of talk and Betty heard Ada’s 
name mentioned several times. 

“The girls are going to march out before 
assembly,” whispered Constance Howard. “Lib- 
bie told me. Ada has been coaxing her to go with 
them.” 

Bobby darted a severe look at her cousin and 
Betty an anxious one. Libbie, however, was a 
reassuring sight. She was placidly eating cereal 
and appeared to be composing a poem, since she 
was diligently counting rhymes on her fingers. 

The sense of tension persisted throughout the 
meal, and most of the girls lingered in the halls 
instead of going to their rooms to get their books. 
At nine o’clock the bell rang for assembly. 

“Ready?” cried Ada, springing to a position 


104 BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

near the door. “All girls who are not afraid to 
stand up for their rights, remember!” 

To Betty’s surprise, about thirty girls gathered 
around Ada. 

“Ada!” Betty mounted the stairs to a place 
where she could see and be seen. “Don’t do any¬ 
thing foolish! You’ll be sorry. Mrs. Eustice is 
coming to-day; you know she is. You’re getting 
the girls into a peck of trouble.” 

“The girls,” said Ada, her voice shrill with 
excitement, “may do as they please. I will not 
stay among thieves!” 

This was apparently her farewell, for she 
turned and marched out of the door, her cohorts 
straggling after her, giggling nervously. 

“What does this mean?” asked Miss Martha, 
hurrying into the hall. “Answer me, instantly. 
What are those girls doing?” 

Betty, trying to frame a reply, was interrupted 
by a muffled shriek from Bobby. 

“Quick, quick!” that young person shouted. 
“Oh, Betty! Girls! Come quick! Look!” 

All crowded to the doors and side windows. 
What they saw rendered them, for the moment^ 
speechless. Betty recovered first. 

“Mrs. Eustice!” she gasped. 


CHAPTER XIII 


HARD QUESTIONS TO ANSWER 

An automobile had driven into the drive just 
as the girls poured out of the hall. They stopped, 
surprised. 

From the car stepped a tall, white-haired 
woman with marvelous dark eyes, exquisitely 
dressed for traveling. After her came a thin, 
sharp-faced woman who carried two umbrellas 
and a bag and looked at the world sourly through 
gold-rimmed spectacles. 

It was Mrs. Eustice and Miss Prettyman. 

The principal and the girls confronted each 
other for the briefest of moments. Amazement 
and guilt struggled for possession of Ada’s face. 

‘‘What does this mean?” asked Mrs. Eustice 
icily. “You should be in assembly at this hour.” 

“We—we—we’ve struck!” stammered Ada. 
“Nothing is right and Miss Martha-” 

Mrs. Eustice’s dark eyes swept the group, and 
a cold chill shook their none-too-stiff backbones. 

“Go back at once,” she said in a level voice. 



lo6 BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

“Miss Prettyman, you attend to the taxicab man. 
I shall take assembly this morning.” 

The rebels, feeling very small and frightened, 
went obediently to the assembly hall and the re¬ 
mainder of the school filed in and took their 
accustomed places. A very stern and quietly ef¬ 
ficient Mrs. Eustice, still in her traveling hat and 
veil, gave out the hymns and read the chapter. 
Every one waited for the announcement they were 
sure would be forthcoming, but they were dis¬ 
missed as usual. The classes that followed were 
the most orderly—and incidentally, the most 
subdued—the harassed Shadyside teachers had 
conducted in many a day, but every girl sighed 
with relief when the last one was over for the 
day. 

“They’ve had a faculty meeting!” announced 
Bobby, as she came up to put on a clean collar 
for dinner that night. “Ever since classes were 
over they’ve been buzzing around in the faculty 
room. I wouldn’t be in Ada’s shoes for fifty 
cents. When Mrs. Eustice is provoked, she can 
be as hard as cement.” 

It was impossible to learn what had been said 
at the faculty meeting, though there was plenty 
of speculation. During the study hour, Bobby 
was trying to get Betty to guess what might have 
been done, when a rap at the door interrupted. 

“Come in,” called Betty indifferently. 


HARD QUESTIONS TO ANSWER 


107 

The door opened with a snap and there stood 
Miss Prettyman. 

“I can’t ask forgiveness for interrupting your 
studies,” she said significantly, “since your voices 
have been sounding steadily for the last fifteen 
minutes. Mrs. Eustice wishes to see you in her 
office.” 

“Both of us?” faltered Bobby. 

“Both of you,” Miss Prettyman declared. 
“This entire corridor has been sent for to explain 
a number of things in which Mrs. Eustice is in¬ 
terested.” 

Sure enough, every girl on Miss Martha’s cor¬ 
ridor had been sent for. Libbie kept an imploring 
eye on Betty, sure that she was to be asked to 
explain her part in the communications carried 
by Towsky to Salsette. Ada and Ruth Gladys 
were flushed and ill at ease. Edith Ames looked 
as though she had been crying. 

“Close the door, please, Betty,” said Mrs. 
Eustice composedly, when the last girl had en¬ 
tered and found a seat. 

Mrs. Eustice, in her soft black dinner gown, 
sat at her desk, the indirect light above giving 
a radiance to her shining white hair. She seemed 
another person from the friendly sympathetic 
principal they knew and dearly loved. Now she 
was remote, considering them as a stranger might. 

“I need hardly say,” she began in her smooth, 


108 BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 


modulated voice, “that I have been amazed by 
the reports I have received this afternoon. A 
great deal of what has been told me seems in¬ 
conceivable. I have sent for you girls because 
both Miss Martha Nevins and Miss Anderson 
assert that the opposing factions drew their lead¬ 
ers from this group.” 

The alert Betty noted that she used the past 
tense. Mrs. Eustice had no doubt that the “re¬ 
bellion,” if there had been one, was completely 
squelched. There remained but the official in¬ 
vestigation. 

“Ada, since you led the revolt, perhaps you 
will be able to tell me what motives impelled you,” 
Mrs. Eustice suggested evenly. 

Ada cleared her throat and glanced nervously 
at the intent faces watching her. 

“Nothing was right, Mrs. Eustice,” she fal¬ 
tered, rising. “Miss Harriet Nevins just piled 
lessons on us. She gave us whole pages to trans¬ 
late, and if we didn’t do them, she gave us an¬ 
other page. The most Miss Sharpe ever gave 
us to do was twenty lines.” 

“I see,” said Mrs. Eustice. “Anything more?” 

“Well, they wear such awful clothes,” mur¬ 
mured Ada. 

“Ruth, have you anything to say?” 
Eustice asked, shifting her probe. 


Mrs. 


HARD QUESTIONS TO ANSWER 


109 

Ruth Gladys Royal rose and held on to her 
chair desperately. 

“The meals!” she gasped. “They were awful. 
Fried potatoes or boiled and once the meat was 
bad; we couldn’t eat it. Aunt Nancy is away, 
you know.” 

“Betty!” Mrs. Eustice turned to Betty and 
the girl stood up, wondering if Bob felt as she 
did when he was being lectured on parade. 

“Betty,” said Mrs. Eustice coolly, “do you 
think Miss Harriet and Miss Martha Nevins 
wear poor clothes?” 

“Not poor, perhaps,” Betty answered slowly, 
“but poorly made and cut.” 

“Have you ever criticized their dress?” de¬ 
manded the principal. 

“I hope not,” Betty said, her sincerity evident. 

“Have the meals been poor?” asked Mrs. 
Eustice, and now her eyes were kindly and en¬ 
couraging, but Betty did not see. She was look¬ 
ing down and her head was bent. 

“Yes,” she admitted reluctantly, “they have 
been pretty bad, Mrs. Eustice. I don’t think it 
was Miss Martha Nevins’ fault. Judy, the cook, 
must have been cheating her. Miss Anderson—” 
she hesitated. 

“Miss Anderson told me her suspicions, and 
they are probably correct,” Mrs. Eustice said 


no BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

briefly. “Is there anything you would like to 
tell me, Betty?” 

“No, Mrs. Eustice,” said Betty instantly. She 
did not raise her eyes. 

“Then I am to understand—” Mrs. Eustice 
said slowly. “I am to understand—” she paused, 
her hands fingering the long chain of jet she 
wore—“that this apparent revolt is ascribed 
to the plain clothing affected by two of the 
teachers, to an alleged severity in the matter of 
assigning lessons, and to poorly cooked meals. 
Am I right?” 

No one answered. 

“Ada, have I stated the causes fairly?” insisted 
Mrs. Eustice. 

“Well, of course there was more than that to 
it,” Ada reluctantly answered. “You know what 
I mean, Mrs. Eustice. This is a—a—cultured 
school, with a—a select-” 

“Yes?” said Mrs. Eustice, her dark eyes 
changing, “I’m listening.” 

“It’s a select school,” blundered Ada, “and 
Miss Martha and Miss Harriet Nevins just don’t 
fit in. I’m not saying a word against them, but 
they don’t belong here. They’re not a bit like 
any teachers we ever had.” She had thought to 
mention the robbery but somehow did not dare. 

“Perhaps it has not occurred to you, Ada, that 



HARD QUESTIONS TO ANSWER 


III 


I choose the faculty members?” Mrs. Eustice 
suggested. 

Ada crimsoned. The inference was obvious— 
that she had criticized the principal’s judgment. 

“How many girls are implicated in this—we’ll 
call it an uprising, I think,” said Mrs. Eustice 
after a moment of silence. 

“A few,” Ada replied uncomfortably. 

“Approximately how many?” questioned the 
principal. 

“Thirty,” Ada stammered. 

“I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you for their 
names, Ada,” Mrs. Eustice said more briskly. 
“As the acknowledged leader, I hold you respon¬ 
sible. I see no reason for questioning individuals. 
Who were the girls I saw on the steps with you 
this morning?” 

“I don’t remember them all,” said Ada, who 
had been threatened with divers penalties by a 
number of badly frightened girls if she betrayed 
them. 

“Then we’ll have to help you,” Mrs. Eustice 
declared. “Betty, were any of the girls in your 
room unit mixed up in this affair?” 

“No, Mrs. Eustice,” said Betty steadily. 

“Libbie Littell was,” Ada put in unexpectedly. 
“She-” 

“No!” cried Betty hotly. “How dare you say 
a thing that isn’t true!” 



112 BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

Bobby pulled the angry girl down into her 
chair as Mrs. Eustice stood up. Her slender 
figure seemed to tower over her polished desk. 

“Don’t lose your temper, Betty,” she advised. 
“I’ll ask Libbie herself to give us the facts.” 

Libbie could suffer agonies from shyness, but 
for once she forgot to be self-conscious. She 
faced Mrs. Eustice bravely. 

“I was going to side with Ada and Ruth 
Royal,” she confessed. “But I changed my mind 
after—after I wasn’t afraid of Ada any more.” 

Mrs. Eustice smiled a little, then sighed. 

“We’ll go no further with this to-night,” she 
said, to the amazement of the listening girls. 
“To-morrow morning I shall have something to 
say.” 

“Yes, but what will she have to say?” asked 
Bobby nervously, as the girls trooped back to 
their rooms. “She looks as though she had plenty 
on her mind, but I suppose we’ll have to wait.” 

“To-morrow,” said Libbie dolorously, “will 
come soon enough.” 


CHAPTER XIV 


JUST A LITTLE STORY 

In spite of Miss Martha Nevins’ strict in¬ 
junctions, there was much visiting between the 
different rooms that evening. Betty and Bobby 
held a reception to all intents and purposes and 
were kept busy satisfying the curiosity of the girls 
who had not been present at the conference. 

“Ada Nansen says she’ll pay you back, Betty,” 
Dora Estabrooke reported. “She’s furious at 
you. I don’t see why, myself. Mrs. Eustice saw 
most of us out on the steps, and I’m not going 
to try to fib out of it. If I’m expelled, I’m ex¬ 
pelled and that’s all there is to it.” 

“No wonder you’re too fat,” said Bobby, with 
characteristic frankness. “You haven’t ambition 
enough to get yourself out of a mess, once you’ve 
tumbled into it. I suppose the real reason you 
were on Ada’s side, you were too lazy to argue 
against her.” 

“Ada hasn’t any right to be mad at Betty,” 
Libbie declared. “She was just taking my part 


11 4 BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

when Ada was deliberately trying to get me 
blamed for something I didn’t do.” 

At this point Miss Martha Nevins flung open 
the door and stood on the threshold, gazing 
grimly at the bevy of girls perched on beds and 
chairs and window seats. 

“I do not intend to repeat my request that no 
visiting be done during study hours,” she an¬ 
nounced sternly. “I shall report every one of 
you to Mrs. Eustice if you leave your own rooms 
again this evening.” 

And there was no greater proof needed that 
law and order had returned to Shadyside than the 
prompt departure of the visitors afforded. Re¬ 
inforcements had come to Miss Martha. 

“Aunt Nancy’s back!” exclaimed Bobby, as she 
sat down to breakfast the next morning. 

There was no doubt of it. The oranges, deli¬ 
cately sliced, the cereal, steaming hot with plenty 
of cream, the toast served in white napkins—all 
spoke of a general in the kitchen. 

“Mrs. Eustice must have telegraphed her and 
sent an airplane to fetch her,” giggled Constance 
Howard. 

But they learned later that Aunt Nancy, with 
uncanny penetration, had “calculated” the return 
of “Miss Callie” and had gauged it to a day. 

Mrs. Eustice presided at the assembly exer¬ 
cises, the faculty occupying their accustomed 


JUST A LITTLE STORY 


115 

places on the platform. At the conclusion of the 
second hymn a rustle went over the school, for 
instead of giving the dismissal signal the principal 
turned to the teachers and spoke in a low voice. 
Instantly the two Nevins sisters rose and left the 
room. 

“I have asked the Misses Nevins to wait in 
my private office while I speak to you,” said Mrs. 
Eustice, turning to face the sea of expectant faces. 
“I have something to say to you that intimately 
concerns them and might embarrass them to 
hear.” 

She closed the heavy Bible and stepped to the 
side of the pulpit desk, leaning an arm on its 
ledge, her favorite attitude when addressing her 
girls. None of them knew what was coming, but 
they were surprised at her first words. 

“I wish to tell you girls a little story this morn¬ 
ing,” said Mrs. Eustice. “Perhaps it is an ordi¬ 
nary story, but it is a true one, and no story about 
life as it is really lived can be quite common¬ 
place.” 

She stopped, her dark eyes roving dreamily 
over the hall. Then the delightful voice went on. 

“I doubt if any girl who is listening to me this 
morning,” she said clearly, “knows what it means 
to be poor. Well, there may be one or two ex¬ 
ceptions”— Betty Gordon was sure that the 
dark eyes rested for the fraction of an instant 


Ii6 BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

on the intent faces of Alice and Norma Guerin— 
“but I am sure that none of you has ever been 
hungry because there was not enough food in the 
house to supply the wants of a family. I knew 
two girls—sisters—who until they were eight 
years old had never been satisfied at a single 
meal. What little food there was had to be di¬ 
vided among many small and hungry mouths. 
These two girls were the oldest in a family of 
five children. They never had a whole dress to 
wear, let alone a pretty one. They have never, 
to this day, had a really pretty dress.” 

Did Betty imagine it, or did a slight murmur 
go across the hall? 

“When the sisters were six years old—they 
are twins—their father died,” said Mrs. Eustice. 
“When they were eight an illness took their 
mother and the three younger children, leaving 
the girls alone in the world. They were ‘bound 
out’ in different families, but in the same town.” 

Betty leaned forward. She would never be 
able to hear the term “bound out” without a little 
catch at her heart. Bob Henderson had been a 
“bound boy” and an orphan. Not even his pres¬ 
ent good fortune and his hardly won virtues of 
self-reliance and cheerful courage could ever make 
up to him—so said Uncle Dick—for his unhappy 
little boyhood. 

“Though Fate had been unkind to these two 


JUST A LITTLE STORY 


II 7 

little girls,” Mrs. Eustice continued to her ab¬ 
sorbed audience, “she had given them one price¬ 
less gift: both had minds of exceptional brilliance 
and promise. Fortunately, the teacher in the 
village school was a conscientious woman and an 
intelligent one. She recognized the ability of her 
two new pupils and she was interested enough to 
call on the families with whom the girls lived and 
explain to them that if Martha and Harriet could 
be educated, they would, in all likelihood, become 
far more valuable members of society than they 
could ever be as domestic workers. I have often 
thought that young folk value education in the 
proportion to which they must struggle to obtain 
it,” added Mrs. Eustice more slowly. 

Betty had a sudden vision of the girls at Shady- 
side—happy, well-cared-for, charmingly dressed. 
The majority of them studied under compulsion 
and they grumbled without ceasing at the amount 
of work piled upon their shoulders. If Mrs. 
Eustice could have been prevailed upon to present 
a diploma for a certain requisite number of years’ 
attendance, many girls would have been satisfied 
to accept it, making no demands in the name of 
scholarship. 

“Martha and Harriet were determined to se¬ 
cure an education,” said Mrs. Eustice gravely. 
“Their teacher encouraged them, but it is doubt¬ 
ful if she ever knew the sacrifice that effort en- 


Ilg BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

tailed. The sisters rose at five o’clock often, to 
have time for study. They were kept out of 
school on the slightest pretext. Because, when 
they reached high school, proper clothes became 
a necessity, they were required to do extra tasks, 
that the clothes might be paid for, they were told. 
As a matter of fact, until they were ^eighteen, 
neither sister had ever had a new frock or coat. 
Their clothes were made over for them from old 
material contributed by charitable-minded folk. 
You girls who love pretty things to wear, think 
this over. Would you go through four years of 
high school if your clothes set you apart from the 
other students, if it was impossible for you to 
take part in any of the fun and frolicking, be¬ 
cause your days were so planned for you that 
ever moment was employed? I wonder.” 

They were wondering, too, those pretty, lux¬ 
uriously bred girls. They were thinking industri¬ 
ously. 

“Harriet and Martha finished the village high 
school when they were sixteen,” Mrs. Eustice 
went on. “They wished to be teachers, and there 
was every reason to believe that they were 
adapted to that vocation. But there was college 
ahead of them. Then began a heart-breaking 
six years—they were not yet free, the law re¬ 
leases a bound child at eighteen—and they must 
take post-graduate work to pass the college en- 


JUST A LITTLE STORY 


119 

trance examinations. With really amazing cour¬ 
age, they argued and pleaded and promised to get 
that two years more of high school in, and when 
they were eighteen they were ready for college. 
The teacher who had first helped them borrowed 
a little money from some friends, and Martha 
and Harriet started their college career with the 
humblest of wardrobes, the slightest of backing, 
and the burden of a debt. I’m afraid this isn’t 
a very gay story,” the principal apologized, a sad 
little droop lining her expressive mouth, “but I 
am coming to the end. 

“The first year of college was the most difficult, 
from a financial standpoint. After that the sisters 
each obtained a scholarship, and there was tutor¬ 
ing. They were exceptionally brilliant, but car¬ 
rying their own schedules and teaching was a 
heavy tax on their physical strength. Martha 
broke down in her third year and her illness cost 
their slender savings. However, they managed 
to hold out to graduate with honors. They were 
offered positions in the high school in the town 
where they lived, and they went back there to 
spend the summer.” 

There was no doubting the interest of the 
girls. One hundred and sixty pairs of eyes were 
fixed intently on Mrs. Eustice. 

“That was a happy summer for them,” went 
on the principal quietly, “though they worked in- 


120 BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

cessantly, for it was necessary to earn money for 
their living expenses. They had paid the debt 
incurred for their first college year and they 
made themselves some simple frocks for class¬ 
room wear. When school opened they were even 
busier and happier—it was work they liked and 
their worst troubles seemed over. 

“Then, one Saturday, the house next to their 
boarding place burned. Harriet saw the flames 
and knew that there were children there, alone, 
for she had seen their parents drive away a few 
hours before. It was a cold November day and 
at first she thought the smoke she smelled was 
from a wood fire some one had started. When 
she saw the house was actually on fire, Harriet 
dashed in and started to hunt for the children. 
She found them just in time, and forced them to 
jump from a second story window. They escaped 
with minor bruises, but the flames had reached 
Harriet before she succeeded in getting the girls 
out of the window, and her poor face and hands 
were sadly scarred. She suffered the most intense 
pain for weeks. Martha rounded out the teach¬ 
ing year alone. When Harriet was well again 
she found she was so disfigured that people com¬ 
mented on her appearance. Foolishly sensitive, 
perhaps, she resigned her position and, with her 
sister, sought another school where she was not 
known. She taught another year in a public high. 


JUST A LITTLE STORY 


121 


school and was specially commended. Because 
the sisters wished to teach the subjects in which 
they had majored at college, they registered for 
places in a private school. This fall they came 
to Shadyside.” 

Mrs. Eustice stopped. She looked down at 
her girls gravely, motionless. 

A quiver, a slight rustle, the ghost of a sigh 
went over the hall. The tension relaxed. 

‘‘Well, I don’t know how you feel, but just 
now a flea would look big beside me,” Bobby 
whispered to Betty. “I hate to think of the silly 
things I’ve said. What do clothes and looks 
really matter?” 

Betty nodded understandingly. Many of the 
girls looked ashamed as they remembered un¬ 
kind and caustic comments they had made about 
the two sisters. 

“Ada won’t give in,” murmured Louise. 

Sure enough, Ada Nansen was rising. 

“But, Mrs. Eustice,” she said, her manner al¬ 
most resentful, “you mustn’t think that we were 
finding fault with—with—well, the way Miss 
Martha and Miss Harriet Nevins looked and 
acted. I don’t know whether you know it or not, 
but there was a robbery while you were away. 
I lost forty dollars and an emerald ring, and 
some of the other girls-” 

“That will do, Ada.” Mrs. Eustice spoke with 



122 BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 


decision. “I have heard the details from the 
faculty. I do not wish that incident discussed 
in any way by the school until we have more 
proofs than I have in hand at present. The 
fairest thing—the only fair thing—to do is to 
avoid suspicion and conjecture for a time. The 
matter will be fully investigated. Assembly is 
dismissed.” 

Rather shamefacedly, the girls scattered to 
their classes. The story they had just heard 
was not to be lightly forgotten. Strangely 
enough they had not thought to ask how Miss 
Harriet came to be scarred, and it was something 
of a shock to learn that her disfigurement was 
the result of her sacrifice. 

“But at that,” argued Bobby perplexedly, “I 
can’t understand why Mrs. Eustice left Miss 
Martha in charge of the school. You said your¬ 
self, Betty, that Miss Anderson was the logical 
choice.” 

“Perhaps I can set your mind at rest on that 
point, Bobby,” Miss Anderson herself replied. 


CHAPTER XV 


BOB IS ENTERTAINED 

Bobby clutched Betty wildly. 

“Good grief! I beg your pardon, Miss Ander¬ 
son,” she stammered. “I didn’t know you were 
behind us.” 

“No, I think it likely you didn’t,” Miss An¬ 
derson answered collectedly. “So you assumed 
I was the logical choice to head the school, 
Betty?” 

Betty blushed, but she faced the bantering eyes 
honestly. 

“I suppose I said it and I certainly thought it 
many times, Miss Anderson,” she said. “We 
girls talk a lot among ourselves, you know.” 

“I do know—to my sorrow and despair as 
well as amusement and delight,” the physical 
training teacher admitted. “If I tell you girls 
a small secret, I must trust to your honor not 
to let it go further.” 

Both girls promised earnestly not to repeat. 

“I have every confidence in you,” said Miss 
Anderson, putting an arm around Betty and 

123 


124 BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

smiling at Bobby. “I may scold you now and 
then when you deserve it, but you and the girls 
with whom you chum are sound and sweet to the 
core. I only wish that Shadyside could have more 
like you. Well, this isn’t at all what I wanted 
to tell you,” she broke off. “I started to tell 
you the reason Miss Martha Nevins was left in 
charge of the school. Aside from her splendid 
teaching ability—and she and her sister are bril¬ 
liant teachers—Mrs. Eustice wished her to have 
the prestige that would come from the position 
and the generous salary that accompanied the title 
of head. To be able to say that she was in charge 
of Shadyside for two weeks in the absence of the 
principal and secretary will weigh heavily with 
the teachers’ registration agencies, should Miss 
Martha plan to teach in another school some 
day.” 

“But she wasn’t a good head,” argued Bobby 
stubbornly. “She hasn’t a bit of discipline. My 
father says the ability to handle men is a gift.” 

“Then the ability to handle girls is more than 
a gift,” declared Miss Anderson, laughing. “I 
don’t intend to discuss that with you, Bobby. 
I’ll merely mention that any girl who is two 
minutes late to gym class to-day will pay for it 
with fifteen minutes of track work after school.” 

The mere presence of Mrs. Eustice acted like 
a charm, and in two days the school was func- 


BOB IS ENTERTAINED 


125 

tioning smoothly, with never a ripple in the even 
rounds of study, recitation, and pleasure. Re¬ 
lieved of their extra responsibility, the Misses 
Nevins began to display the gifts of their fine 
minds, and the girls discovered that once their 
interest was aroused, it was stimulating to study 
under such enthusiastic guides. 

“Of course they still look like the last roses 
of summer, and I think Miss Harriet ought to 
wear a mask,” Ada said carelessly. “But at that, 
they’re rather good when it comes to explaining 
something you don’t understand.” 

On the other side of the lake, word went forth 
at Salsette that “Shadyside is right side up with 
care again and why don’t we go nutting the way 
we did last year?” 

“Wait till I get through this blamed pack drill,” 
implored Timothy, and his chums loyally waited. 

The last few days were remitted for exemplary 
behavior, and Bob, delegated to arrange for a 
hike, with nuts as the objective and the girls as 
companions, went to Shadyside. 

He asked for Betty and the little maid had 
gone in search of her when some one opened the 
door that led from the reception room into one 
of the private offices. It was Miss Prettyman 
who, after inspecting Bob and learning that he 
wished to see Betty, returned to her work of typ¬ 
ing, leaving the door fastened back. 


126 BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

“Clack!” sounded the busy keys of her ma¬ 
chine. “Clack! Clack!” 

“How do you do, Bob Henderson,” said a 
voice that certainly was not Betty’s and Ada Nan¬ 
sen was smiling at him. 

“Betty has gone to Edentown,” purred Ada. 
“But of course I’ll take a message for her—be 
glad to. It’s been so long since I’ve seen you.” 

Bob registered a mental vow that never again 
would he visit a girl’s school without a trusted 
chum at his side. 

“Thank you,” he said formally, “but I must see 
Betty. I want to talk over something with her.” 

“You’re very fond of Betty, aren’t you?” Ada 
replied, to his horror settling herself in one of 
the pretty chairs as though she meant to prolong 
the conversation. 

“We have known each other a long time,” Bob 
said, wondering why Ada wore such an elaborate 
dress on a school day. At least he supposed it 
was elaborate—it had a great many ends and 
floating ribbons that distracted his eye. 

He was determined not to mention the nutting 
party. There was Miss Prettyman who would 
certainly try to veto the plan, and Ada, of course, 
would think that she should be invited. 

“I’d like to know Betty better than I do,” pur¬ 
sued Ada. “She is rather stand-offish, you know. 
I’d love to have her come and spend the summer 


BOB IS ENTERTAINED 


127 

with me, but she never seems to want to leave her 
uncle.” 

‘‘Uncle Dick wouldn’t let her visit you, if she 
wanted to,” thought Bob, but what he said was: 
“Betty is crazy about Uncle Dick.” 

“If we knew each other better, I’m sure we’d 
get along better than we do,” said Ada, lowering 
her voice. “Betty is so impulsive, she leaps to 
conclusions, and often she is unjust. Now there’s 
John Towsky, our assistant janitor. Betty is 
prejudiced against him for some reason. I think 
it is because he is foreign. She won’t say a good 
word for him.” 

“I think he’s a pretty poor specimen myself, if 
you are interested to have my opinion,” Bob pro¬ 
claimed, not lowering his voice. “The less Betty 
has to do with him, the better.” 

“Bob,” said Ada confidentially, “I’ve often 
wondered if you have any authority with Betty 
—whether you’re responsible to Mr. Gordon for 
her or anything like that. It’s so unusual for a girl 
to be without parents and guardian, too, as Betty 
seems to be.” 

“Mr. Gordon is her guardian, as well as her 
uncle,” Bob announced stiffly. 

“But she never seems to have to consult any 
one,” persisted Ada. “She does exactly as she 
pleases and she seems accustomed to having her 
own way.” 


128 BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

“As long as she uses judgment, why not?” Bob 
countered, wondering what idea was behind Ada’s 
questions. “If Betty should need advice—” 

“If you have quite finished discussing me,” 
broke in a hard little voice, as Betty stepped be¬ 
tween the portieres, “perhaps you’ll be able to 
set me right. Maria told me you wanted to see 
me, Bob.” 

Ada rose with practised grace. 

“Bob has been waiting for you, dear,” she said 
swiftly. “I must say I think you’re lucky to have 
such a pleasant substitute guardian when you can’t 
be under your uncle’s eyes. I have to take a music 
lesson now, so I’m sure you’ll excuse me.” 

She went out of the room and a stormy-eyed 
Betty confronted Bob. The typewriter was still 
clicking away composedly in the office. Bob made 
one step backward and closed the door softly. 

“How dare you talk about me like that? And 
with Ada Nansen!” choked Betty. “I think 
you’re too mean! I can’t tell you what I think. 
And I’ll never trust you again as long as I live!” 

Bob’s chin hardened in a familiar way, but it 
was a Bob the girl had never seen who faced her 
steadily. 

“I won’t stand for that, Betty,” he said very 
quietly. “You sit down in that chair there and 
listen to me. Sit down!” 

To her surprise, Betty sat down. 


BOB IS ENTERTAINED 


129 

“I came over here to see you about something 
special,” said Bob, in the same repressed tone, 
and he seemed to tower over her. “Ada waltzed 
in and said you had gone to Edentown and would 
I leave the message with her? Naturally I 
wouldn’t. Then she sat down and apparently 
tried to find who was your guardian—why, I’d 
be pleased to learn. I gave her the briefest pos¬ 
sible answers to her questions, and the only rea¬ 
son I stayed, was because I was hoping you’d get 
back. I violated no confidences of yours. I 
never have. Now do you believe me, or don’t 
you?” he added, with sudden fierceness. 

Betty looked at him respectfully. 

“Yes, Bob,” she said meekly, “I believe you.” 

His face cleared and his shoulders squared as 
though he were relieved. 

“Well, you’d better,” he declared humorously. 

“But—don’t be angry, Bob—you didn’t tell 
Ada you were my substitute guardian, did you?” 
Betty questioned. 

Bob’s hearty laugh was an answer in itself. 

“If I were your guardian, Betty Gordon,” he 
informed her, his eyes twinkling, “there would 
be times when I’d feel as though I hadn’t done 
my duty by you. I think you need an eagle eye 
on you, all right; but far be it from me to assume 
the job.” 

Betty made a face at him just as the door 


1 3 o BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

opened and Miss Prettyman advanced into the 
room. 

“I came to invite some of the girls to go on a 
nutting party,” said Bob easily. “Saturday morn¬ 
ing will be all right then, Betty?” 

Betty nodded, speechless for the moment. 

“Mrs. Eustice will have something to say, I 
fancy,” Miss Prettyman remarked. “I don’t 
think the conduct of the school during the last 
two weeks has merited many parties, young man.” 

“But surely the penance can wait,” suggested 
Bob, “and the nuts won’t. We’ll see that you 
have a bag of specially fine nuts to salt, Miss 
Prettyman.” 

Wily Bob remembered that Miss Prettyman 
had a weakness for hickory nuts which she salted 
herself. 

“I would like some nice, well-filled nuts,” the 
teacher replied. “I’ve heard that the crop is 
abundant this year.” 

“We’ll see that you have the finest,” promised 
Bob. “And of course—ye gods, what was that?” 


CHAPTER XVI 


Madeline's mountain 

“That” was a combination of sounds calcu¬ 
lated to upset even well-trained nerves. Miss 
Prettyman permitted herself a ladylike scream 
as one of the portieres sagged with a ripping 
sound, parted from the pole and fell to the hall 
floor, accompanied by a thud, the noise of splinter¬ 
ing wood, and the crash of broken glass. 

“Look out!” Bob sprang forward, and to Bet¬ 
ty’s excited eyes seemed to gather up the portiere 
carefully in his arms. 

In another moment she saw that Ada was 
wrapped in the folds of the curtain. 

“Goodness gracious, Ada Nansen!” gasped 
Miss Prettyman, startled out of her usually pre¬ 
cise English. “What in the world were you do¬ 
ing? Have you hurt yourself?” 

Divested of the folds of the heavy curtain, 
Ada stood revealed, much flushed and patently ill 
at ease. 

“I tripped,” she stammered. “I went to save 
myself and caught hold of the first thing I came 
131 


132 BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

to, which happened to be the curtain. No, I’m 
not hurt. I’m all right.” 

Miss Prettyman stepped over the sill and 
glanced into the hall. 

“The console table is broken and the flower 
vase is smashed,” she announced. “Did you fall 
headlong into the table, Ada?” 

“Yes,” Ada said eagerly, while Bob looked 
significantly at Betty. “That was it, Miss Pretty- 
man. I felt dizzy.” And she put a hand pathet¬ 
ically to her head. 

But Miss Prettyman wasted small time in sym¬ 
pathy. 

“It’s very odd, if you stumbled into the table,” 
she observed, “that one of the legs should be 
completely split from the body. It looks to me 
as though you had been standing on the table and 
your weight broke it down and that then you 
caught the portiere as you felt the table giving 
way under you and brought it down in a heap.” 

Ada’s face was the color of her crimson sweater. 

“Of course I wasn’t standing on the table!” 
she said angrily. “What would I do such a silly 
thing for?” 

Miss Prettyman’s sharp eyes glimmered with 
a wintry smile. 

“You might wish to listen to what was being 
said in the next room,” she declared distinctly. 
“And to see, without being seen,” she added. “By 


MADELINE’S MOUNTAIN 


133 


standing on the console table, placed just outside 
the door, you could look over the curtain pole and 
see and hear—whatever you wished to see and 
hear.” 

Ada stared in dumb fascination at. the woman 
who could make such shrewd deductions. 

“Were you listening, Ada?” asked Miss Pret- 
tyman, while Bob stirred uneasily. He would 
have liked to “duck.” 

“Certainly not,” Ada retorted sharply. “I 
wouldn’t be guilty of such an underhanded act. 
Would I, Bob?” she suddenly appealed to him. 

“I hope not,” he said soberly. Then a group of 
girls came down the stairs and Ada slipped away 
without further argument. 

“She was listening, though,” declared Betty, as 
Miss Prettyman went in search of one of the 
janitors to remove the broken table and sweep 
up the glass. “I know she was.” 

“Don’t waste time on her,” Bob counseled. 
“Get Mrs. Eustice to let the girls go on Saturday. 
We’re going to take one of the school busses and 
we’ll go up to Madeline’s Mountain and have a 
regular lark. We’ll promise to get you back by 
four o’clock, so we won’t need a chaperone. Not 
with our crowd!” 

“I’ll look after the lunch,” promised Betty, as 
Bob went down the steps. “Aunt Nancy is back, 
and she likes to put up lunches.” 


I3 4 BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

Betty was unanimously elected to get the per¬ 
mission of Mrs. Eustice for the Saturday frolic. 
She secured it, but not without being thoroughly 
cross-examined. 

“Ordinarily, I should be tempted to veto the 
automobile,” said Mrs. Eustice gravely. “But if 
George is taken as chauffeur, I think I shall feel 
safe.” 

Betty hastened to spread the good news and 
then to notify Aunt Nancy that a lunch sufficient 
to satisfy sixteen healthy young appetites would 
be needed. 

“And George is going, too—don’t forget him,” 
she added. 

“He can eat as much as any sixteen I ever 
see,” grumbled Aunt Nancy. 

But Betty knew that she would put them up a 
generous lunch and that no one need suffer from 
hunger, no matter how keen the appetites whetted 
by the drive in the crisp, cold air. 

It was “snappy weather” now, as Bobby Littell 
described it, and the eight girls who came out 
to meet the Salsette bus the Saturday morning 
set for the nutting party were warmly and sen¬ 
sibly dressed. Their bright-colored brushed wool 
sweaters made a pretty picture, and Miss Ander¬ 
son, who was on hand to see them off, approved 
unstintedly of their shoes. 

“I like to see girls appropriately dressed for 


MADELINE’S MOUNTAIN 


135 

a tramp or a ball,” she announced. “But deliver 
me from the girl who tries to combine the two 
outfits.” 

The girls laughed and climbed into the bus, 
where the tactiturn George was already seated 
at the w T heel. 

“I don’t know as this machine will go far,” 
he said cautiously, as he turned out upon the lake 
road. “Looked her over last night and it seemed 
to me she was the least bit doubtful. Those Sal- 
sette mechanics don’t know as much as they 
might.” 

Since George had never been known to under¬ 
take the shortest trip to the station without some 
doleful prediction similar to this, his passengers 
refused to be made apprehensive. And when they 
picked up the boys—sitting in a row on the stone 
wall of the Academy—even George was not proof 
against the infectious high spirits that prevailed. 
There was room for them all to be seated com¬ 
fortably, the Academy busses being twice the 
length of those in use at Shadyside, the day was a 
perfect blend of sunshine, wind and bracing at¬ 
mosphere, and here were sixteen young people, 
the best of friends, on pleasure bent. What more 
could any one ask of a Saturday? 

“Libbie,” began Tommy Tucker, “did you*ever 
hear the story of Madeline’s Mountain?” 

“Oh, no,” Libbie said eagerly. “How did it 


136 BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

get that name, Tommy? I’ve always wanted to 
know.” 

A young and beautiful maiden, whose name was 
Madeline, was engaged to a young and handsome 
man, who, wishing to perpetuate the beauty of his 
fiancee, began to carve her profile in stone on a 
flat slab somewhere on the mountain. The maiden 
died when the carving was half done, and he fin¬ 
ished it from memory and then committed suicide 
with the carving knife—er—whatever they call 
the thing sculptors work with. Right on the slab 
of stone, Libbie.” 

“Good gracious!” gasped Libbie, spellbound. 
“How awful!” 

“Well, the point is,” Tommy continued, “no 
one was ever able to find the slab of rock or the 
body of the unfortunate and handsome young 
man. It is supposed the undergrowth covered 
them.” 

“And the girl’s name was Madeline?” breathed 
Libbie. 

“It was,” Tommy assured her. 

“You’d better tie a rope to Libbie, the moment 
we get to the mountain,” Bobby advised. “Noth¬ 
ing will keep her from searching for that slab 
of rock. I can tell you right now how many nuts 
she will pick.” 

“I’ve promised Miss Prettyman a bag of hick- 


MADELINE’S MOUNTAIN 


137 

ories,” said Bob. “It’s a matter of duty to get 
them.” 

“What was the young man’s name?” Libbie 
inquired eagerly. 

A shout of laughter greeted this question. 
Tommy glanced wickedly at their chauffeur’s 
broad back. 

“His name, Libbie,” he announced gravely, 
“was George.” 

“Huh!” grunted George, in great disdain, his 
eyes on the road ahead. “Is that so?” 

“You ought to be proud to have the same 
name,” Libbie informed him indignantly. “I think 
that was a lovely, romantic thing to do—carve 
the picture of your diseased fiancee in stone—so 
there!” 

“Are you sure you don’t mean ‘deceased’, Lib¬ 
bie?” suggested Torrey Blake respectfully. 

“Do I?” Libbie said. “Perhaps I do. I some¬ 
times get those two mixed.” 

“If Madeline and her young man walked up 
this road often, I don’t wonder she died,” com¬ 
mented Betty. “It’s about as rough a thorough¬ 
fare as I’d care to cover.” 

“If we break down now, we’re ten miles from 
a garage,” George observed cheerfully. , 

“The bus isn’t going to break down,” Bobby 
announced vigorously. “Why always look for the 
worst to happen?” 


138 BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

“Then you won’t be disappointed,” Tommy 
Tucker informed her neatly. “Hey, somebody 
catch it! What was that?” 

“Something fell out,” Frances Martin declared. 

“Stop the bus!” called half a dozen excited 
voices. “George, stop her!” 

“What for?” asked George placidly. 

“Something fell out!” 

“Well, is it something you want?” George in¬ 
quired mildly. 

“Good grief, how do we know? We want to 
find what fell out,” said Tommy Tucker, already 
half way to the back step. 

“I’ll go. I know what it was,” Timothy Derby 
announced suddenly. “Get out of the way, 
Tommy!” 

George consented to stop the bus and Timothy 
ran back to the dark object lying in the road. 

“A book!” chorused the watchers, as he stooped 
to pick it up. “A book! If it’s poetry, we’ll con¬ 
fiscate it on sight.” 


CHAPTER XVII 


IN HOLIDAY MOOD 

“Libbie won’t be able to listen to any poetry 
to-day, Timmie,” Gil Lane said seriously, as the 
flushed and breathless Timothy resumed his place 
in the bus. 

“Who said she would?” Timothy demanded 
hardily. 

“Isn’t that poetry? Here, hand it over,” or¬ 
dered Gil, and he made a dive to get possession 
of the book. 

Timothy managed to protect his property by 
sitting on it, and George let the car shoot forward 
so suddenly that Gil bumped his head smartly 
against the top. 

“Now will you be good?” jeered Timothy. 

“When do you calculate to begin to nut?” 
George asked, by way of diversion. 

“When we get to the mountain,” said Tommy 
explicitly. 

“I don’t know what you call that, but folks 
around here call it Madeline’s Mountain,” George 
drawled, pointing to a narrow trail that started 
139 




140 BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

at one side of the road and wound out of sight 
between dense undergrowth. 

“All out!” cried Bob. “This way for nuts and 
ozone. Ladies first!” and, as the car stopped, he 
sprang out and stood ready to help the girls down. 

“Are you coming, George?” Betty asked, when 
they were all out, Timothy with a bulge in his 
pocket of book dimensions. 

“That I am not,” the redoubtable George as¬ 
sured her. “I’ve brought my paper and my pipe, 
and here I stay till you want to go back. Mrs. 
Eustice said you must be at the school by four. 
I’ve my lunch and all, so don’t be troubling your 
heads about me.” 

“He could get along fine on a desert island,” 
Bobby observed, as the party started up the trail, 
the boys carrying the boxes of lunch. “I’ll bet 
he takes a long nap this afternoon.” 

Bob and Betty gradually took the lead. Both 
were excellent climbers and made light of the 
ascent. They pressed forward and came out at 
the end of the trail first, finding themselves in a 
clearing on the side of the mountain. 

“Sit down and get your breath,” Bob counseled, 
pointing to an old tree stump. “I’ve hardly had 
a chance to talk to you since school opened. How 
is the term going for you, Betsey?” 

“All right, now that Mrs. Eustice is back,” 
said Betty, perching on the stump and turning 


IN HOLIDAY MOOD 


141 

her pretty, flushed face toward him. “Things 
were really awful while she was gone—you know 
that. And, oh, Bob, I don’t believe I’ve told you 
about the robbery!” 

“Robbery?” repeated Bob, looking disturbed. 
“In the school, you mean?” 

He listened attentively while Betty eagerly out¬ 
lined for him what had occurred, not forgetting 
the loss of her own beautiful wrist watch. 

“And Mrs. Eustice won’t let the girls talk about 
it,” she concluded. “She says that we have no 
proofs of any one’s guilt. But I can’t believe that 
either of those teachers would steal. They have 
good salaries. What would they turn thieves 
for?” 

“That’s nonsense, of course,” said Bob im¬ 
patiently. “And I think Mrs. Eustice is right 
about keeping the thing quiet. Let it be gen¬ 
erally talked of, and either the real thief will be 
shielded or some innocent person will come in for 
a lot of unpleasant notoriety, while if an investi¬ 
gation is carried on quietly, the thief may grow 
bold and betray himself.” 

“Well, don’t tell the boys,” cautioned Betty. 
“Remember I’ve only told you because—because 
I tell you everything.” 

“Good girl,” approved Bob. “Tell me one 
thing more—how long ago did this happen?” 

“Last week just before Mrs. Eustice came 


142 BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

back,” Betty replied, wondering a little at the 
question. 

Bob whistled, the peculiar whistle that always 
denoted a conclusion reached. 

“That fits in,” he said thoughtfully. “Betty, 
John Towsky has been having a high old time 
in town all this week. I saw him dressed up in 
dazzling raiment, and the ticket taker at the 
movies said he hasn’t missed a night lately. He’s 
been treating his friends at that shooting gallery, 
too. Tommy saw him there one night and I saw 
him a couple of afternoons.” 

“He gets tips,” said Betty, before she took 
thought. 

Then the others came up and dropped panting 
on the ground to rest and compare notes. 

“We’re two short,” said Bob, after a rapid 
count. “Where are Libbie and Timothy?” 

“Libbie is probably hunting for the stone slab,” 
Tommy submitted, “and Timothy has either fol¬ 
lowed her or has got lost. Or maybe he stunned 
himself by walking into a tree head-on, as he 
recited Browning.” 

“We ought to keep together,” said Betty, a bit 
anxiously. “We’ll waste time hunting each other 
unless we keep in a fairly close group. Bob, 
won’t you call and see if you can’t make Libbie 
hear? Or Timothy—they must be together.” 

“Let Bob do the work,” Tommy agreed pleas- 


IN HOLIDAY MOOD 


143 


antly. “I’m tired. I don’t doubt the handsome 
young man and the beautiful young maiden died 
early deaths. I have heart palpitations this min¬ 
ute—or can I be hungry?” 

“You don’t eat at this time in the morning, if 
you are hungry,” Bobby informed him, as Bob 
shouted down the trail. “You’re getting fat, 
Tommy Tucker, and I think a fat boy in a uni¬ 
form looks like—like a sausage.” 

“I am not fat!” scolded Tommy, genuinely 
ruffled, for girls are not alone in their horror of 
gaining weight. “No one stands a chance to get 
fat with drill every day in the week. Bob is 
splitting the echoes all right, isn’t he?” he added, 
as a second hail sounded. 

“Where do you suppose they can be?” worried 
Betty. “We’ll have to start a search if they don’t 
come in a few minutes.” 

“There’s no sense in Libbie doing something 
foolish every time we go for a hike,” asserted 
Bobby, whose English, the quiet Louise had been 
heard to observe, also went “on a hike” frequently. 

“Now children, no squabbling,” said Frances 
Martin. ‘1 think we’d better go down the trail 
and gather up the missing ones. They must have 
stopped en route” 

Betty eagerly seconding her suggestion, they 
started down the trail again. Though they 
stopped and called at frequent intervals, no one 


144 BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

answered and at last even Bobby admitted to 
uneasiness. 

“Look!” whispered Betty, when they were near 
enough to the road to see it through the trees. 

“Well!” Bob’s whisper was eloquent. 

Peacefully enthroned on the bus step sat Lib- 
bie, chin in her hand, rapt gaze fixed on Timothy, 
who sat cross-legged on the grass at the side of 
the road. He was reading aloud. On the driver’s 
seat, George listened, apparently enthralled. 

With a wild war-whoop, Tommy Tucker 
bounded forward before Betty could stop him. 

“Ah, the Saturday Literary Society meeting, I 
see,” he gibed. “Are we interrupting?” 

Libbie smiled sweetly and, not at all discon¬ 
certed, scrambled down from the step. 

“Were you looking for us?” she asked calmly. 

“Words can’t do us justice, so why use words ?” 
Bob addressed the searching party with equal 
calm. “Put that book away, Mr. Derby. This is 
a nutting party, allow me to remind you. And, 
having been brought along to gather nuts, you’re 
going to do your share, or we’ll know the reason 
why. Lend a hand, will you, Tommy?” 

Tommy grasped one elbow and Bob the other 
and between them they marched the protesting 
Timothy up the trail in double quick time, Bobby 
and Betty helping Libbie along at the same rapid 
pace. 


IN HOLIDAY MOOD 


145 


“Now, then,” announced Bob, when they came 
out in the clearing, “we’ll eat, because the lunch 
boxes are a nuisance to carry around. And after 
we eat, we’ll gather nuts.” 

“Yes, sir,” said Timothy meekly. 

Not a crumb of that lunch went begging, and 
when they had finished, the Tucker twins were in 
a state of coma. At least so Bob explained their 
disinclination to go further up the hill. 

“It’s your solemn duty,” he warned the lazy 
pair, “to get some nuts for Miss Prettyman. 
Probably, your whole happiness for the winter 
rests on your ability to please her this trip.” • 

Tommy staggered to his feet and dragged his 
reluctant twin to an upright position. 

“If we must, we must,” he groaned. “Where 
do the hickory trees grow on this hillside?” 

“Forward, march!” directed Bob. “I know a 
good place.” 

“I wish,” Libbie sighed to Betty, “that we 
could find that slab of rock. I’d just like to see it.” 

“Maybe you’d wish you hadn’t, afterward,” 
said Bobby, who had overheard. 


CHAPTER XVIII 


THE OPERETTA ROLES 

Bob leading the way, they tramped across the 
clearing and came to a belt of hickory trees. The 
ground beneath them was thickly strewn with 
nuts, and the party set busily to work to fill the 
muslin sacks they had brought. 

“I don’t see why Bob is so determined to take 
back the best to Miss Prettyman,” Constance 
Howard observed. 

“Because he promised. Isn’t that the reason, 
Bob?” demanded Betty. 

“Um—partly,” Bob admitted. “But the real 
reason goes deeper. I’m trying an experiment.” 

“I know. I should think you’d blush to confess 
it,” said Tommy Tucker sorrowfully. “You hope 
the old lady will suffer from indigestion.” 

“That shows how limited your mental capacity 
is,” Bob informed him. “I’ve got it all doped 
out that the girls don’t go at Miss Prettyman 
right. You roil her, when, with a little fore¬ 
thought, you’d be able to smooth her down and 
have her eating out of your hand.” 

146 


THE OPERETTA ROLES 


147 

“Hickory nuts, I suppose,” said Betty resent- 
fuly. 

“Sure!” returned the grinning Bob. “Diplo¬ 
macy, my child, is what you lack. See if my 
scheme doesn’t work out to a happy ending. 
Where’s the bag for the best nuts?” 

“Libbie has it,” said Betty. “Why, where did 
she go?” she added in quick alarm. “Let’s yell 
for her.” 

They shouted in concert and, to their relief, 
a faint hail came back to them. 

“That must be Libbie. It sounded over here,” 
said Betty, beginning to run. “There she is!” 

“Why, how queer she looks—sort of stooped 
over!” Bobby added. 

“Hello!” said Libbie restrainedly, as they came 
up to her. 

“What made you run off?” asked Bobby, who 
never could keep still. 

“I wanted to find the slab of stone,” Libbie 
replied defiantly. “I know it must be somewhere 
on this mountain.” 

“Well, did you find it?” asked Gil Lane curi¬ 
ously. 

“For pity’s sake, Libbie, get up,” Bobby broke 
in. “If you could only see how you look!” 

Libbie seemed about to cry. 

“I can’t,” she said. 

“You can’t what?” Bobby asked sternly. 


148 BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

“I can’t get up!” wailed Libbie. “There’s a 
trap under this stone, and my dress is caught in 
that and the stone’s on top of the trap>—sio 
there!” 

It is to be regretted that, in the face of Libbie’s 
obvious distress, the boys began to laugh. After 
a moment the girls joined in and the woods echoed 
to the shouts of their laughter. 

“I thought maybe this was the carved slab with 
Madeline’s face on it, you know,” poor Libbie 
tried to explain, when they were a little quieter. 
“And I pushed it up as far as I could, but when 
I stooped down something went click and fright¬ 
ened me. I jumped and the stone came down 
and then I couldn’t get my dress out. And there 
are bugs and ants and snakes and beetles under 
there, too,” she added, in misery. 

“Poor Libbie, don’t you care,” Bob comforted 
her. “We’re as mean as dirt to laugh at you. 
But you do look funny. Come on here, you laugh¬ 
ing hyenas, and help me rescue Libbie.” 

Three or four boys put their shoulders against 
the rock and tilted it back. Sure enough, there 
was a trap underneath and the skirt of Libbie’s 
cloth sport skirt was caught in the steel jaws. 
They pried this open, not without some damage 
to the material, and Libbie was free. 

She stood up and shook herself as a spaniel 
might after a cold swim. 


THE OPERETTA ROLES 


I 4 9 

“Come on,” she said distinctly, “let’s go home.” 

And home they went, counting the day a suc¬ 
cess, for were not the nuts for Miss Prettyman 
safely stowed away under the seat? 

“Though what Libbie got out of the nutting 
party is more than I can see,” Bobby remarked 
a trifle sarcastically. 

A few days afterward Miss Anderson stopped 
Betty as she was rushing madly through the halls, 
in frantic endeavor to get to a history recitation 
after a delay caused by the desire of Bobby to 
recite her latest grievance about Libbie. 

“Betty, I want to speak to you about the play,” 
said Miss Anderson. “I’m to coach it again this 
year, and we thought an operetta would be a 
welcome change.” 

“Yes’m,” Betty replied. “I love ’em. Is that 
the second bell?” 

“I’ll see you this afternoon—don’t get that 
strained expression, please, Betty,” and the phy¬ 
sical training teacher laughed. “You’re too young, 
and nothing is important enough to give you 
nerves, yet. Run along, child.” 

Breathless, Betty slipped into her seat in Miss 
Martha’s class. She thought that very few people 
understand the worries a schoolgirl had. People 
were always telling you that your school days 
were your happiest, just as though there was 
nothing to upset you from September to June. 


1 5 o BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

“Even Miss Anderson doesn’t understand,” 
thought Betty, hastily numbering the pages of her 
theme for her next class, which would be English. 
“Bobby and Libbie make me their battleground, 
and Ada and Ruth seem never to lose a chance 
to say something disagreeable. I wonder if I can 
sing in the operetta?” 

“The trouble with you, Betty,” Miss Martha’s 
voice broke in on her confused thoughts, “is that 
you don’t concentrate. You sit there and dream. 
Can you tell me what I was speaking of a few 
minutes ago?” 

Betty could not, and a few moments later she 
missed a question which Ada answered with bril¬ 
liance and ease. 

“Oh, dear, and I was planning to have a fine 
report for Uncle Dick this month,” sighed Betty. 
“Oh, well, I can’t help it, if Miss Martha is go¬ 
ing to mark us so severely.” 

But when she came to discuss the operetta with 
Miss Anderson, Betty found that marks and re¬ 
ports could not be so lightly regarded. 

“Mrs. Eustice refuses to let any girl have a 
part in the cast,” Miss Anderson reported, “whose 
average falls below seventy-eight. And unless 
some of you girls show a decided reform, there 
won’t be any cast. And Betty—” 

“Yes, Miss Anderson?” Betty answered, a little 
puzzled at the tone. 


THE OPERETTA ROLES 


151 

“I must have Ada for the Princess. She can’t 
act, but her voice is too lovely to disregard. And 
I wonder if you would be the Prince?” 

A laugh bubbled into Betty’s eyes, and Miss 
Anderson’s face relaxed. 

“I might have known you would say ‘y es >’ ” the 
teacher said gratefully. 

“Of course I’ll be the Prince, if you ask me 
to,” said Betty soberly. “But, Miss Anderson, 
won’t rehearsals be rather funny?” 

“I don’t think so,” Miss Anderson rejoined. 
“I believe that Ada will be so pleased to have 
the leading role that she will school her tongue 
and practise graciousness. In fact, I want this 
operetta to weld a better school spirit among the 
girls.” 

That night a meeting of the student body was 
called to hear the operetta read and the roles 
assigned. Always before a play had been chosen 
for the dramatic abilities of the Shadyside girls, 
and the news that a musical setting would be the 
feature this year, was voted pleasantly thrilling. 

“Of course, Ada will have the leading role, 
and it’s perfectly right,” the comment ran. “She 
has the voice, and it is trained. Of course, it is 
a pity she is such a poker on a stage, but you 
can’t have everything.” 

The operetta was announced as “The Princess 
Who Wanted the Moon” and, as had been fore- 


152 BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

told, the role of the Princess was given to Ada. 
Betty Gordon was to play the Prince, the King 
and Queen were to be the Guerin girls, Norma 
and Alice, and the Old Witch was to be played 
by Libbie. The Witch’s Black Cat was assigned 
to Bobby, who could not act any better than Ada, 
but who dearly loved a finger in the dramatics. 

There was to be a large and tuneful chorus* 
and as far as possible the girls were to make their 
own costumes and scenery, the art departments 
of the school being placed in charge of this work. 

“Maybe we won’t make those Salsette boys 
sit up and take notice!” chuckled Betty. “They 
give a pretty good play themselves, but ours is 
going to be more than good this year.” 

As Mrs. Eustice had foreseen, the desire to 
appear in the operetta acted as a spur to am¬ 
bition, and between the hours spent in preparation 
of lessons and the time required for rehearsals 
and costuming effort, the girls were kept whole¬ 
somely busy. They were all “crazy” about the 
music of their operetta and needed no reminder 
to report promptly for chorus rehearsals. 

Madame always assisted Miss Anderson in the 
work of coaching, and it was her eye for color, 
as well as the flair for design that was the gift 
of the art teacher, Miss Warde, that proved in¬ 
valuable in getting the right stage effects. 

“I declare, this will be the prettiest thing we’ve 


THE OPERETTA ROLES 


153 

ever done, if Miss Anderson can only limber up 
the Princess,’’ Bobby said, as she prepared to 
settle down for an evening of sedate study oppo¬ 
site Betty. “I can’t think of anything but a 
wooden Indian when she pitches forward into 
your arms.” 

“She does pitch,” admitted Betty, giggling at 
the recollection. “If I thought she wouldn’t get 
miffed, I’d suggest that we practise that scene 
on the mats in the gym; then Ada wouldn’t get 
hurt if she did fall. She’s afraid of falling on the 
floor—that’s what makes her so awkward now.” 

“Well, Libbie ought to take a few lessons, too,” 
Bobby declared. “She is a good Witch, but when 
she comes down with her full weight on my paws, 
I intend to tell her about it.” 

“I’m going to persuade Ada to practise with 
me,” repeated Betty. “She’s anxious to make a 
hit, and there’s no reason why any one can’t learn 
to act.” 

“But I told her the gym was haunted,” Bobby 
confessed. “I don’t believe she’ll go there with 
you.” 


CHAPTER XIX 


Are there ghosts? 

Betty's pen poised in midair. 

“You told her the gym was haunted!” she 
gasped. “Why did you say a thing like that?” 

“Toss me the Latin glossary, will you?” Bobby 
requested coolly. “Oh, I told her one day when 
she was teasing Mary Moore about going up in 
the water tower. I can’t stand a girl bragging,” 
Bobby announced, with an odd air of virtue. 

Betty bent her head over her paper and wrote 
steadily. 

“Ada said she wasn’t afraid of anything,” 
Bobby went on, “and Mary said in that meek 
little voice of hers, ‘Not even ghosts? ’ Ada said 
there was no such thing as a ghost, so I naturally 
put one together for her and hid it in the gym.” 

“Bobby!” cried Betty, crossing out two words 
and blotting the page. “How much of that is 
true?” she asked. 

“There’s a ghost in the gym and it will visit 
Ada if she dares poke her nose in there alone,” 


ARE THERE GHOSTS? 


155 


declared Bobby. “It’s a lovely ghost. Tommy 
helped me make it. Wait till you see it, Betty.” 

“I don’t want to see it, and I advise you to 
behave yourself if you don’t want to lose your 
part in the operetta,” Betty returned sternly. 

She forgot about the ghost in the press of a 
busy day that followed, a day that culminated 
with a rehearsal of the school play. 

“The stairs are made,” Miss Anderson an¬ 
nounced; “but I think we’ll manage once more 
with the short flight from the gym. Do try to 
come down gracefully, Ada. So much depends on 
an impressive entrance.” 

They were rehearsing in the gymnasium and 
the teacher took her place at the piano while 
Ada poised at the top of the short flight of stairs 
that led to the gallery. 

At the signal of a lightly sounded chord, Ada 
began her aria. As her lovely voice never failed 
to thrill the girls, practically the entire school 
assembled at these rehearsals, just to hear Ada 
sing. 

“Now start to come down,” called Miss Ander¬ 
son. “Don’t stop singing, Betty. There’s your 
cue.” 

A clatter under the gallery announced that the 
Prince had arrived on his steed. He dismounted 
and came running to the foot of the stairs, where 
he knelt on the lowest step. The charming, sing- 


156 BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

ing voice came nearer. The singer thrust out a 
rather stiff hand, shut her eyes on a high note— 
and missed her footing. She came down with a 
crash on the astonished Prince, and both rolled 
over the polished floor, to bring up against the 
weight machines. 

“Why didn’t you take my hand?” scolded Ada. 
“I thought, of course, you’d be right there. Oh, 
dear, I hope I haven’t broken my wrist!” 

“It wasn’t time for you to put out your hand,” 
Betty protested, rubbing her bruised head. 
“That’s in the second act.” 

“It is not!” retorted Ada. “I guess I know 
my part. I’ve studied it hard enough. 1 am 
to put out my hand and you are to take it and 
kiss it.” 

“I hope she bites it!” whispered Bobby to 
Louise, who shook her head reprovingly. 

“You’re mistaken, Ada.” Miss Anderson 
looked up from her manuscript. “That comes 
in the second act. You should stop suddenly in 
surprise here, and the Prince looks up and waits 
for your greeting. Now, go through with it 
again.” 

Betty ran off toward the gallery, but Ada sat on 
the lowest step and did not offer to move. 

“Ada!” called Miss Anderson. “Ready?” 

“I won’t do it again—not with Betty,” Ada 


ARE THERE GHOSTS? 


157 

declared angrily. “She makes me nervous. I 
can’t sing unless I feel comfortable” 

Miss Anderson swung around on the piano 
bench. 

“If you wish to resign your role, Ada, I have 
nothing to say,” she announced crisply. “But if 
you intend to go on with the part, you’ll have 
to follow my directions. Now, which do you 
choose?” 

“Oh, I suppose I can do it,” grumbled Ada y 
mounting the stairs. 

She was desperately eager to wear the flowing- 
velvet robes that would be the costume of the 
Princess, and to sing the title role was the height 
of her present ambitions. For that she would 
endure the slights, as she termed them, of Miss- 
Anderson and the hateful actions of Betty Gor¬ 
don. 

Betty’s sense of humor was almost her undoing 
in the repeated scene, for when Ada stopped, as 
directed, and stood motionless, she glared at the 
kneeling Prince in anything but a lovable manner. 

“I mustn’t laugh,” thought Betty wildly. “She’ll 
blame me for spoiling the scene again.” 

“Give a little cry—a faint, surprised cry,” 
commanded Miss Anderson, “and fall into the 
arms of the Prince.” 

This was the moment when Ada always 
“pitched,” as Bobby expressed it. Now she 


158 BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

opened her mouth and cried “Ow!” as though a 
pin had been stuck into her and staggered into 
the arms of the Prince who, braced for the shock, 
nevertheless nearly went over backward. 

Miss Anderson looked discouraged, but she 
said nothing, and the rehearsal progressed to a 
peaceful close. 

It was not till she was ready to do her lessons 
that night that Ada discovered she had left a 
grammar in the gymnasium. 

“Ruth, don’t you want to go and get my 
book?” Ada asked persuasively. “I’m so tired, 
I can’t go down all those stairs again.” 

Ruth Gladys Royal was an obliging girl, but 
rooming with Ada had made her suspicious of 
apparently innocent requests. 

“Why don’t you want to go?” she countered. 

“I just told you—I’m tired,” said Ada. 

“But the gym is so spooky with the lights 
turned off,” Ruth objected. 

“Nonsense; there’s nothing to be afraid of,” 
returned Ada. “Come in,” she called, as some 
one tapped at the door. 

Mild-mannered Laura Bennett, one of the 
quietest girls in the school, opened the door. 
Could Ada give her the assignment for the next 
day’s French? She had copied it hastily from 
the board and now found herself unable to read 
her “notes.” 


ARE THERE GHOSTS? 


159 


“I left my paper in the grammar,” Ada an¬ 
swered, “and the grammar is down in the gym. 
I was trying to get Ruth to go and get it for me, 
but she’s afraid of spooks.” 

“I’ll go,” Laura offered, and Ruth was willing 
to accompany her. 

Ada, left alone, drew music clefs all over her 
scratch paper and hummed the opening chorus of 
“The Princess Who Wanted the Moon” con¬ 
tentedly. When the door burst open and a wild¬ 
eyed and disheveled Ruth flew in, followed by 
Laura, panting and scarcely less panic-stricken, 
Ada could only stare in astonishment. 

“Ghosts!” whispered Ruth hoarsely. “We saw 
one ! In the gym!” 

“It was a trick. I know it was a trick,” Laura 
gasped, “but of course it startled us.” 

“I’ll bet it was Bobby Littell—she told me the 
gym was haunted,” said Ada. 

Up rose Ruth Gladys Royal in righteous wrath. 

“And you let me go down there!” she demanded 
shrilly. “Well, all I can say is—” words appar¬ 
ently failed her. 

“Don’t be silly. It isn’t haunted, of course,” 
Ada returned impatiently. “Bobby was only fool¬ 
ing. I’m going to go and tell her, though, what 
I think of a low-down trick like that.” 

Ruth elected to go with Ada, and they left 
Laura busily writing while they went down the 


160 BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

corridor and tapped on the door of the room 
occupied by Betty and Bobby. 

“You want to be more careful, Bobby Littell,” 
said Ada, as soon as they were admitted. “Your 
trick almost gave Ruth hysterics, and if she has a 
nervous breakdown, you’ll be the one to blame.” 

Bobby’s wide-eyed innocent stare was appeal¬ 
ing. 

“What are you talking about?” said she. 

“About that ghost you put in the gym, of 
course,” Ada informed her. “Ruth went back to 
get a book for me, and she nearly had a fit.” 

“Oh, it was a real ghost, I’m sure of it,” poor 
Ruth broke in. “It had such glittering eyes. I’ll 
never forget those eyes!” 

Betty closed her book decisively. 

“There is no such thing as a ghost,” she said. 
“You know it. I thought Aunt Nancy was the 
only one around here who believed in ghosts.” 

“Aunt Nancy says there is a ha’nt out in the 
grounds,” Ada remarked, at which Ruth buried 
her head under a sofa pillow. 

Betty shook her head vigorously. 

“All foolishness,” said she. “Probably Aunt 
Nancy saw a tree waving its branches in the 
wind. Everything looks queer at night.” 

“And you wouldn’t be afraid, if you did meet 
a ha’nt?” Ada persisted. 


ARE THERE GHOSTS? 161 

“What are you trying to do, Ada?” Bobby de¬ 
manded suddenly. “Frighten Betty?” 

“I’m going to pay you back for your silly 
trick,” said Ada. “I’ll dare you, Betty, to go 
out and pin a card on the two oaks at the foot 
of the driveway.” 

Into Betty’s eyes flashed the look that Bob 
knew well. Her cheeks flushed. 

“All right, I’ll do it!” she agreed. “Give me 
the card, quick.” 

“Betty Gordon, have you lost your mind?” 
Bobby scolded. “It’s pitch dark out, and cold, 
too. It’s against the rules to go out without 
permission after dinner, and you know it as well 
as I do.” 

Betty was putting on her sweater and appar¬ 
ently did not hear. 

“Don’t be silly, Betty,” pleaded Bobby. 

“I dare you!” said Ada excitedly. 

Betty took the card Ada handed her and 
snatched a long pin from the tray on her dresser. 
She darted to the door, opened it, and stood 
poised a moment on the threshold. 

“If I don’t come back,” she cried gayly, “the 
jha’nt has caught me!” 

Then she ran lightly down the hall. 


CHAPTER XX 


DETECTIVE BETTY 

The two oaks to which Ada had referred 
were at the foot of the driveway which skirted 
the back of the school. The drive was used for 
the tradesmen’s delivery trucks and wound 
through a lonely part of the grounds. Betty could 
not repress a little shudder as she plunged into 
the velvety darkness. 

It had been easy to leave the school unseen, 
for she had passed over the connecting bridge into 
the Administration Building and had let herself 
out of the front door by turning the spring catch. 
It was the time when the girls were doing their 
most consistent studying, and a blaze of lights 
from the study hall showed Betty that Miss 
Martha Nevins and her charges were still at 
work. 

She reached the dark, towering oak trees with¬ 
out mishap and was reaching up to pin the card 
high on the trunks when something cold and wet 
touched her hand. 

Betty was as brave as most girls and braver 

162 


DETECTIVE BETTY 163 

than some, but she nearly screamed aloud! That 
something was so cold and wet and clammy! 

“The—the ha’nt—” she stammered. Then a 
rough tongue began to lick her fingers and she 
knew it was no “ha’nt,” but a dog. 

“Why, you dear bow-wow!” she cried, trying 
to see him clearly. “Where on earth did you come 
from? Where do you live?” 

The dog gave a final rough lick to her hand 
and dropped down on the ground. Betty heard 
him crunching a bone contentedly. 

Now that her card was in place, Betty had the 
problem of getting back into the school unob¬ 
served. She thought this would be comparatively 
easy, but when she moved away the soft pad-pad 
of the dog’s feet sounded close behind her. 

“For pity’s sake,” said Betty, stopping short, 
“you can’t follow me. Don’t you know I haven’t 
a place to keep a dog? Go home!” 

The dog did not move. 

“Go home, where you belong,” repeated Betty, 
as severely as she could speak. 

The dog wagged its tail. She could feel it beat¬ 
ing against her shoes. 

“I’ll run,” Betty decided. “Perhaps he can’t 
run fast enough to keep up with me.” 

But running delighted her unwelcome compan¬ 
ion, and he bounced along excitedly, even giving 
one or two short barks of pure glee and jumping 


164 BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

up on Betty to show her how much he liked this 
performance. 

“You seem to think we’re doing track work,” 
giggled Betty. “But, dog, whatever you do, don’t 
bark. Do you want the whole school to come 
out and find us?” 

The dog sat down as soon as she stopped run¬ 
ning and waited contentedly for her to do some- 
thing else. 

“I know what I’ll do!” Betty’s resourcefulness 
did not desert her. “I’ll send you adrift on the 
lake. You won’t tip over, and, if you do, all dogs 
can swim. Some one will pick you up in the 
morning, and we’ll get the boat then, too. Come 
on, Ponto—you’re due to take a voyage.” 

It was a long walk to the dock, but Betty knew 
her way perfectly and was even able to run con¬ 
fidently down the lawn and across the road. The 
blinding lights of a motor car made her crouch 
down in the shadow of the hedge for a moment, 
but the friendly darkness shut down again in an 
instant and Betty and the dog reached the dock 
undetected. 

It was not the easiest task she had ever at¬ 
tempted—to bundle the confiding animal into the 
rowboat tied at the little wharf. But Betty was 
determined to carry out her plan and she finally 
had the dog comfortably stowed away with a 


DETECTIVE BETTY 165 

bone she had thoughtfully picked up for it before 
she quitted the back driveway. 

“Be a good dog and take care of yourself,’’ 
whispered Betty, pushing the boat off with a 
broken canoe paddle that had luckily been left 
under one of the canoes. 

She pushed steadily and had the satisfaction 
of hearing the dog’s teeth crunching into the bone 
she had provided, before the widening water car¬ 
ried the boat beyond the reach of her paddle. 

“The girls will think something has me, for 
sure,” thought Betty, turning to go back. “I wish 
Bobby had come. This is a barrel of fun.” 

The sense of freedom had gone to her head 
and she was thoroughly happy. Down the dock 
she darted, across the road, into the sweeping 
drive that led to the group of school buildings. 
What was that? 

Betty slowed her mad pace—surely a shadowy 
form had crossed the driveway just ahead of her. 
She thought of calling out. It was Bobby, per¬ 
haps, come in search of her. But her sense of 
caution restrained her. 

“It’s too tall for Bobby,” Betty decided. “Who 
can it be? I’m going to find out. That may be 
the ‘ha’nt’ Aunt Nancy is forever talking about.” 

Betty was wildly excited, but she was not 
frightened. She crept forward silently, unable to 
see the figure except when it slid, with a curious 


166 BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

darting movement, from tree to tree. The drive 
was bordered with handsome elms. 

“Some one is going into the school building,” 
Betty murmured, her eyes straining to make out 
the mysterious shadow moving ahead. 

Loud and clear, there floated on the still night 
air the mournful howl of a dog—a dog deserted 
and betrayed. Betty wanted to laugh, for her 
lively imagination pictured the poor beast drifting 
on the placid waters of the lake and wondering 
how he had come to be adrift. 

She glanced back hastily over her shoulder, and 
when she turned again the figure had vanished. 

“I wonder if some one is hiding up there in the 
shadow of the buildings?” pondered Betty. “Or 
did some one go in? Well, there’s nothing to do 
but make a guess. The door of the Administra¬ 
tion Building is left unlocked till last, so I’ll take 
a chance and go in there.” 

Breathing quickly, her cheeks crimson, Betty 
slipped into the hallway and walked noiselessly 
down the carpeted corridor and turned, intending 
to speed up the stairs and slip through the cov¬ 
ered bridge into the dormitories. 

She changed her plans, however, when a quick 
look down the other direction disclosed the slink¬ 
ing figure of a man walking rapidly on his tiptoes. 

“It’s Dave’s assistant—that Towsky!” Betty 
identified him quickly. “Now, what in the world— 


DETECTIVE BETTY 


167 

He’s going to the classrooms, I do believe! 
There’s nothing to take him there at this time of 
night.” 

Betty was accustomed to act as quickly as she 
thought—Bob Henderson sometimes said she 
acted more quickly than she thought, but that was 
the result of a momentary irritation—and now 
she followed Towsky noiselessly. She kept out of 
sight until he rounded the corners just ahead, and 
when he stopped before the door of Miss Harriet 
Nevins’ classroom, Betty was safely hidden in a 
deep niche where a water cooler stood in summer 
time. 

The classroom doors were never locked, and 
all the assistant janitor had to do to gain entrance 
was to turn the handle of the door and go in. 
There was a moment, which, Betty guessed, he 
employed in pulling down the heavy dark shades, 
then the lights flashed on. 

“I’m going to see what he is up to, if he shoots 
me on the spot,” said Betty positively, and she 
crept up to the door. 

Betty peeped in and saw Towsky standing at 
the teacher’s desk. He was fumbling with sev¬ 
eral keys on a key ring, his face intent as he 
searched for the particular one he wanted. He 
gave a grunt of satisfaction when he found it and 
fitted it into the lock of the desk. 

Something was wrong, for he muttered an ex- 


168 BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

clamation as he jerked it free. He dropped to his 
knees and tried another key. This time the lock 
turned and he lifted up the lid of the desk. 

Betty’s eyes were on a line with the opened 
desk, and to her amazement she saw the man 
put his hand into his pocket, draw out several 
bills, and place them in the desk. Then he 
stopped to examine several notebooks, appropri¬ 
ated one of the several pencils, and put the lid 
down again softly. As he turned the key in the 
lock, Betty fled, running as though an army of 
ghosts were at her heels. 

“Betty!” cried Bobby in undisguished relief, 
as her chum burst into the room. “You don’t 
know how worried we’ve been about you! I’m 
so glad you’ve come! Are you all right?” 

Betty nodded, breathless for the moment. 
Libbie and Frances Martin, Louise and Con¬ 
stance Howard, hearing Bobby’s voice, came hur¬ 
rying in. 

“Miss Prettyman sent Ada and Ruth back to 
their rooms,” Libbie explained. “We had a great 
time trying to keep her from finding you weren’t 
in. What made you stay so long, Betty?” 

Betty had dropped, a vivid heap, on the bed. 
She was still panting. 

“Oh, girls!” Betty found her voice at last. 
“You’ll never guess what I saw! I couldn’t be¬ 
lieve my own eyes!” 


DETECTIVE BETTY 


169 


Libbie collapsed into a rocking chair! 

“Then there are ghosts!” she wailed. “Aunt 
Nancy said so. If Betty saw a ghost, you just 
have to believe in them! And we heard a dog 
howling. That’s a bad sign.” 

“For goodness’ sake, can’t you keep quiet?” 
Bobby demanded wrathfully. “Betty didn’t see 
a ghost, you goose. Tell us what you did see, 
Betty, that’s a dear.” 

“I saw John Towsky,” said Betty clearly, “go 
into Miss Harriet’s classroom and unlock her 
desk and put money in it.” 

The girls stared. 

“Honestly?” Louise asked mechanically. 

Betty briefly and rapidly outlined what she had 
seen since leaving the room. When she men¬ 
tioned that Towsky had locked the teacher’s desk 
again, Bobby sprang to her feet. 

“That settles it,” she cried. “He’s trying to 
get Miss Harriet in wrong. Let’s go down and 
tell Mrs. Eustice everything you saw, Betty.” 

“That would be nice for Betty, wouldn’t it?” 
Libbie said scornfully. “How is she going to 
explain being out after dark?” 


> 


CHAPTER XXI 


HONEST CONFESSION 

Bobby was instantly contrite. 

“I never thought of that, Betty,” she said 
apologetically. “Of course you can’t tell Mrs. 
Eustice. She would be furious.” 

But the reaction had set in for Betty. 

“It was a silly thing to do—to take that dare,” 
she confessed. “And we will, too, go and tell 
Mrs. Eustice. If I let John Towsky succeed 
with his tricks simply because I’m afraid of get¬ 
ting into trouble, what kind of person does that 
make me? Come on, Bobby, before I lose my 
courage.” 

“We’ll come, too,” said Libbie and Constance, 
and Louise and Frances asserted that they meant 
to lend their support. 

“Don’t drag Ada or Ruth into this,” com¬ 
manded Betty, as they approached the door of the 
principal’s sitting room, which was on the floor 
below the rooms of the girls. 

Betty knocked and the well-known voice called: 

“Yes? Come in.” 

170 


HONEST CONFESSION 


171 

Mrs. Eustice looked surprised when she saw 
the six girls. She had been reading and was 
seated in a low chair before a grate fire. She 
wore some kind of negligee of black satin, edged 
with white fur, and, as she rose, she looked very 
lovely and also very stately and “generalesque” 
—the word was Bobby’s. 

“Is anything wrong?” the principal asked, 
turning on a center light and surveying the girls 
gravely. 

“Yes, Mrs. Eustice—at least we think so,” 
Betty said, with some hesitation. “We thought 
we ought to come and tell you that—about—it’s 
rather important, we’re sure,” she ended. 

“Suppose you sit down here and be comfort¬ 
able.” Mrs. Eustice indicated the davenport 
drawn near the fire. “Now, Betty,” she said, 
after they had seated themselves, “what is this 
you have to tell me?” 

Betty looked at the fire. 

“I saw John Towsky—the assistant janitor, 
you know—unlock Miss Harriet Nevins’ desk 
and put something into it, Mrs. Eustice,” she 
said. “Money, I think. And then he locked the 
desk up again.” 

“Miss Harriet’s desk?” the principal repeated. 
“You mean the desk in her schoolroom? But 
what were you doing there to-night, Betty?” 

“It was during study hours,” Betty admitted, 


lj2 BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

with flaming cheeks. “I—I came in from out¬ 
doors and happened to see him sneaking through 
the corridors.” 

“And you followed him and watched him?” 
prompted Mrs. Eustice. 

“Yes,” said Betty. “I saw him open the desk 
and put the money in and then lock it up.” 

“Did he see you?” 

“No, I’m sure he didn’t,” Betty answered. “I 
turned and ran before he had time to put out 
the lights. Oh, I hope he didn’t see me!” she 
added, with a little shiver of fear. 

Mrs. Eustice nodded soberly. 

“It is extremely doubtful that he saw you,” 
she said slowly. “And now I am going to ask 
you girls to do a difficult thing. I want you to 
keep this knowledge to yourselves. Don’t dis¬ 
cuss it with any one. I shall make an investiga¬ 
tion at once, and you will not have long to wait.” 

The girls promised solemnly not to talk, and 
Bobby was wondering if they could not go—she 
was beginning to feel sleepy—when Mrs. Eustice 
turned to Betty. 

“What were you doing outdoors after din¬ 
ner?” she asked bluntly. “Had Miss Martha 
Nevins given you permission, Betty?” 

Betty shook her head. 

“No one gave me permission,” she said bravely. 
“I—I just went out.” 


HONEST CONFESSION 


173 

“She went on a dare, Mrs. Eustice,” Bobby 
chimed in. “Betty just can’t take a dare, and 
A—the girl knew it.” 

“So that was it?” said Mrs. Eustice. “Betty 
can’t take a dare? Why, what a foolish little 
Betty she is, after all.” 

Betty felt very foolish indeed when, with a few 
skillful questions, Mrs. Eustice drew the whole 
story from her. A silly escapade, the whole af¬ 
fair, when told calmly and dispassionately. 

“I heard that dog howling,” Mrs. Eustice said, 
a smile hovering around her mouth. “I must 
say, Betty, that you don’t lack initiative. And 
no one saw you go out or come in?” 

“No,” whispered Betty, eyes on the fire, “no 
one. 

“Then, if you had not come to me to tell me 
about this John Towsky, we should not have 
known that you were wandering around Shady- 
side, giving dogs boat rides?” said the principal, 
and now her eyes were frankly laughing. “I 
think, Betty, it took some courage to come to me 
and tell me what you have.” 

Betty raised her head and her eyes met the 
principal’s. 

“I had to come,” she said simply. 

“Yes, you would have to,” Mrs. Eustice agreed. 
“But we’ll let the confession balance the sin this 


1^4 BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

time. That is, if you think that in the future 
you’ll be able to ignore a dare, Betty?” 

“I’ll try,” said Betty, half afraid to promise. 

“Then away to bed and to sleep, all of you. 
And mind you show me how well girls can keep 
a secret,” and Mrs. Eustice dismissed them. 

Mrs. Eustice took the assembly in her usual 
calm manner the next morning. Her glance 
rested lightly on the six girls who had visited her 
the night before, but she read the notices and an¬ 
nounced changes in schedules as though nothing 
had happened. 

“I wonder if Miss Harriet has opened her 
desk this morning?” whispered Bobby to Betty, 
as they went down the hall to the classroom 
where first period Latin would claim them. 

And six pairs of eyes were utterly unable to 
keep away from the teacher’s desk on the low 
platform. Betty felt as though her own were 
glued to it, and it was with relief that she saw 
Miss Harriet bustle in to take the class. 

“She hasn’t opened it!” the girls in the secret 
telegraphed silently to Betty, as the teacher took 
a key ring from her pocket, fitted a key in the 
lock and lifted the lid deliberately. 

“Corrine, raise that window, will you?” she 
directed one of the girls. “I think—” She 
stopped so suddenly that she focused the atten- 


HONEST CONFESSION 


175 

tion of the class more effectively than if she had 
snapped “Attention!” 

The teacher’s face was startlingly white and 
the scars stood out lividly. In her hand she held 
some bills—one with the corner cut across, an¬ 
other with a large blot of red ink showing plainly 
on its face. She stood there, holding the money 
helplessly, staring at the class who stared back 
mutely. 

“Ada!” screamed Ruth Gladys Royal in an 
hysterical voice. “Ada! Look! Isn’t that your 
money—the bill you lost?” 

“I knew it!” Ada cried. “I knew it! I said 
all along, she took it. And that’s the five dollar 
bill Violet Canby lost! See, Violet, didn’t I tell 
you?” 

Betty sprang to her feet, her face flaming. 
Bobby began to pound on her desk in an effort to 
be heard. All the girls were talking at once, 
arguing, accusing, defending. In the midst of the 
uproar, some one said “Sh!” A sudden hush took 
the place of the clamor. 

Mrs. Eustice closed the door quietly behind 
her. 


CHAPTER XXII 


THE PLAIN TRUTH 

“I WILL ask you to take your own seats, 
please,” said the principal coldly. 

With cheeks still flushed and eyes glittering, 
the girls dropped into their places. Bobby 
wrapped a handkerchief tenderly around her 
knuckles, skinned in the cause of justice, as she 
afterward confided to Tommy Tucker. 

“What is the trouble, Miss Nevins?” asked 
Mrs. Eustice, turning to the teacher, who still 
stood behind her desk. 

As in a daze, Miss Harriet placed a chair for 
the principal, who seated herself composedly on 
the platform. 

“What is it?” she repeated, and now her voice 
held only good will. 

“I don’t know,” Miss Harriet Nevins stam¬ 
mered. “I opened my desk this morning, Mrs. 
Eustice, and I found this in it!” 

She flung the bills from her, sat down sud¬ 
denly and burst into tears. 

The abashed class stirred uneasily. They saw 

176 


THE PLAIN TRUTH 


177 

Mrs. Eustice pat the shaking shoulders gently, 
tuck her own handkerchief into the clenched 
fingers, then the principal arose and faced them. 

“I didn’t understand your remarks, Ada, as I 
entered the room,” she said curtly. “You were 
repeating, ‘I knew it! I knew it!’ Just what 
did you mean?” 

“That twenty dollar bill is mine, Mrs. Eus¬ 
tice!” Ada cried eagerly. “I know it, because 
the corner is cut across. And that five dollars 
belongs to Violet. She remembers the bill that 
she had stolen from her had a blot of red ink 
on it. That’s the money that was stolen when 
you were away.” 

“Yes?” said Mrs. Eustice. “Whom do you 
suspect of stealing it?” 

Ada’s glib tongue faltered. Miss Harriet had 
dried her eyes and was gazing directly at her. 

“Ada thinks I stole her money, Mrs. Eustice,” 
said the teacher. “She said so.” 

“Ada will wish to ask your pardon, then,” the 
principal returned. “I am glad to be able to 
name the thief to you, Ada, since you seem to 
make so many serious mistakes. John Towsky 
took your money and also the valuables the other 
girls lost.” 

“John Towsky!” Ada repeated dully. “John 
Towsky!” 

“The assistant janitor,” said Mrs. Eustice. 


178 BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

‘‘Betty Gordon saw him acting suspiciously in the 
corridor last night, and she followed him. She 
saw him open Miss Nevins’ desk—evidently with 
a skeleton key—and place money inside. Betty 
came to me at once, to tell me what she had 
seen, and I counseled silence because I wished to 
make a further investigation.” 

Ada stared dumbly and the rest of the class 
waited breathlessly. It was evident that there 
was more to be told. 

“For some time past—ever since my return—” 
continued Mrs. Eustice, “the teachers have been 
missing money and jewelry. There was evidence 
that the office safe had on one occasion been 
tampered with. I had a talk with Dave McGuire 
last night, and I am quite convinced that John 
Towsky is the thief. Before this period is over, 
I think he will be in custody. Please go on with 
the lesson as usual, Miss Nevins,” she said, as 
she turned to leave the room. 

“I never saw any one arrested!” whispered 
Bobby, wildly excited. “I’d give anything to see 
them arrest John Towsky.” 

“Well, I’m thankful I haven’t such a morbid 
mind,” Betty returned. “No wonder Mrs. Eus¬ 
tice didn’t do anything about the first robbery 
if she has been tracing later ones among the 
teachers. I wonder if Miss Anderson was robbed 


THE PLAIN TRUTH 


179 

of her platinum watch? She hasn’t worn it for 
a week, but I supposed it was being repaired.” 

By this time Miss Harriet Nevins had herself 
well in hand and proceeded with the recitations. 

“Stop him!” a hoarse voice suddenly bellowed 
through the hall. “George, head him off— 
quick!” 

“You may get your wish after all!” Betty 
whispered, as Bobby, who had been so anxious 
to see the assistant janitor arrested, actually 
turned pale. 

“George!” shouted the voice again, and the 
girls recognized Dave McGuire’s tones. “George! 
which way did he go?” 

Somewhere a door banged—some one shrieked 
—there was a crash—and the girls rushed to the 
windows in time to see three struggling figures 
roll down the steps of the building they were in. 
John Towsky landed on the gravel, with Dave 
and George, the chauffeur, on top of him. 

“The next time you try to get away,” admon¬ 
ished Dave, in tones that carried far and wide, 
“don’t let me see you start running when I’m 
coming around the corner, me lad.” 

The crestfallen Towsky was hauled to his 
feet and slunk away dejectedly between his cap- 
tors. The girls learned afterward that Mrs. 
Eustice had sworn out a warrant for him and that 
George and the constable, who had served it, took 


180 BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

him directly to the jail in Edentown. Dave had 
brought down Towsky’s bag which the constable 
had found ready packed in his room and a hasty 
search of his effects revealed an envelope of pawn 
tickets, several of the trinkets the girls had lost, 
and Miss Anderson’s valuable watch. 

“They have a lot of pawn tickets,” declared 
Bobby. “Must be for the other things he took.” 

“Oh, I hope one of the tickets is for my wrist 
watch!” cried Betty. “Then maybe I’ll get it 
back!” 

“You’ll have to wait to find out,” said Libbie. 

“And now,” said Betty gleefully at noon time, 
“I do hope those sillies who would have it that 
Miss Harriet or Miss Martha stole their things, 
are satisfied.” 

“Well, I wouldn’t go so far as to say they’re 
satisfied,” Bobby returned. “Ada, especially, 
looks far from downright happy and contented.” 

“Isn’t it great, Bob?” bubbled Betty, when he 
and Tommy came over to Shadyside on Satur¬ 
day afternoon. . “Isn’t it simply wonderful? 
We’ve killed two stones with one bird—I mean 
the other way around, of course. That dreadful 
Towsky man is gone and every one knows that 
poor Miss Harriet had nothing to do with the 
thefts.” 

“If I were Miss Harriet, I’d go teach the 
heathen in some nice place,” Tommy Tucker ob- 


THE PLAIN TRUTH 181 

served. “The heart of Africa where they eat 
you, when peeved, couldn’t seem any worse to 
her after her experiences here. Some heartless 
bunch, you are!” 

“We are not!” Bobby rushed to the defense 
of her friends. “We can’t help it, if some of us 
make mistakes. I heard all about how horrid you 
were to that new cadet, Tommy Tucker.” 

Tommy looked uncomfortable. 

“Bob stuck up for him,” he submitted. “We 
razzed him pretty hard, too, but Bob wouldn’t 
desert the kid. Roland Rice was about ready to 
have Bob dropped from the class society, too, 
but the kid made good just in time.” 

“Did Ada apologize to Miss Harriet?” Bob 
asked, in order to change the subject. 

“I think she did, though I’m not sure,” Betty 
replied. “The girls who signed that first pe¬ 
tition and those who lost things in the robbery 
are keeping so still we don’t know what to think. 
Either they have asked pardon of Miss Harriet, 
or they are so ashamed of their suspicions they’re 
subdued for the time being. I don’t see how Ada 
can face Miss Harriet, unless she does apologize. 
She kept shouting at her, T knew it! I knew 
it!’ ” 

The girls walked down to the dock with the 
two boys, and Bob purposely let Bobby and 
Tommy go ahead. 


182 BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 


“I’ve been wondering, Betty,” Bob said in a 
low tone, “if you’ll have to appear against that 
Towsky chap. I hate to think of you being mixed 
up in the case.” 

“Mrs. Eustice spoke about that, too,” said 
Betty. “She said her lawyer told her that he 
wouldn’t have to call any witnesses. Towsky has 
confessed and told about two or three other places 
he robbed.” 

Betty and Bobby left the boys at the dock and 
were walking back to the school when they met 
the school bus, bound for the afternoon mail. 
Miss Anderson was going to town, and she in¬ 
vited the two girls to go with her, an invitation 
they gladly accepted. Edentown, as Bobby ob¬ 
served, wasn’t a large place, but it was some 
place. At the post-office George took in the school 
pouch and brought it out in a few minutes well- 
filled. 

“Letter for you, Miss Betty,” he said, handing 
a white square to Betty. “It was on top, so I 
thought you might as well have it ahead of 
time.” 


CHAPTER XXIII 


BAD NEWS 

Betty was nothing, if not feminine. While 
Bobby watched her, she took that letter and 
tried to read the postmark, turning it this way 
and that. Then she looked at the back to see 
if a return address might afford her a clew as 
to the sender. Failing that, she held it up to the 
light. 

“I wonder who it’s from?” she said slowly. 

“Good grief!” Bobby cried, borrowing the 
boys’ expression, “why don’t you open it and find 
out? It’s probably from your Uncle Dick.” 

George had gone to the hardware store on an 
errand and Miss Anderson was busy in another 
shop. Betty and Bobby had the bus to them¬ 
selves. 

“I guess I know Uncle Dick’s handwriting,” 
retorted Betty indignantly. “I never saw this 
writing before.” 

“Maybe it’s from mother,” Bobby said. “Or 
from Mrs. Guerin.” 

183 


184 BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

“I said that I never saw this writing before,’* 
repeated Betty. 

Bobby’s patience, never long-suffering, was 
rapidly evaporating, and only the appearance of 
Miss Anderson in the door of the shop saved her 
from an explosion. 

“Girls!” the teacher called, “come in here and 
see what you think of this stuff for the chorus 
costumes. It seems to be the shade we want.” 

Betty put her letter in her purse, and for the 
next hour examined and discussed fabrics and 
colors to be used in the school operetta. 

“My one hope is that I don’t suffocate in that 
cat costume,” confided Bobby, when they were 
bouncing on their homeward way, George pos¬ 
sessing a peculiar gift for finding the worst parts 
of the road and failing to avoid them. 

“You look so cunning,” Betty consoled her. 
“Just like a cat, Bobby. And Libbie makes a 
good witch, too.” 

“She doesn’t put much life into her part yet, 
but I think she’s better than she was,” said 
Bobby. “Anyway, if Ada doesn’t take cold, I 
don’t see how the thing can fail to succeed. I 
admit that girl can sing.” 

Miss Anderson smiled above her lapful of 
bundles. 

“I think our audience is going to be surprised at 
the number of good voices,” she observed. “Cer- 


BAD NEWS 185 

tainly, I never gave the music department credit 
enough for its training.” 

Betty had intended to read her letter as soon 
as she reached the school, but she and Bobby 
found a group around the bulletin board in the 
hall and stopped to learn the news. 

“What do you think?” gasped Alice Guerin, 
her eyes wide with dismay. “Ada Nansen has 
dropped to sixty in three subjects and she’s barred 
from the operetta 1” 

“Let me see,” demanded Betty, pushing her 
way to the board. 

Sure enough, there was a list of names neatly 
typewritten by Miss Prettyman. Half a dozen 
girls were forbidden to take part in “dramatics 
or athletics” until such time as their scholarship 
should be brought up to requirements. Libbie 
Littell was on the list, having taken a downward 
slant in her reports for Latin and mathematics. 

“Ada is furious!” Edith Ames said impor¬ 
tantly. “She blames Miss Harriet and Miss 
Martha, too. She says they are trying to pay 
her back and don’t want her to have the leading 
role in the play. They’ve flunked her in Latin 
and history, you see.” 

“Well, she’s failed in French,” pointed out 
Betty. “Surely she can’t think Madame has a 
grudge against her?” 


186 BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

“She thinks Madame wants you to take the 
role,” Edith replied innocently. 

Betty stared and Bobby leaned up against 
Alice, pretending need for support. 

“I?” gasped Betty. “Why, I couldn’t take that 
part, if I wanted it. I can’t sing well enough I Ada 
has the finest voice we ever heard at Shadyside, 
and no one has disputed it, least of all Madame.” 

“Ada can’t act,” ventured Jessie Wood. 
“Madame knows you’re our best actress, and 
some of the girls say good acting is more im¬ 
portant than singing.” 

“Then some of the girls are utter idiots!” 
Betty retorted with vigor. “Miss Anderson as¬ 
signed the parts, and you ought to be ashamed 
to listen to any silly gossip. Where is Ada?” 

“Gone to bed with a sick headache,” Edith re¬ 
ported. “She cried all the afternoon, and Ruth 
says Miss Harriet has killed her.” 

Betty brushed past the group around the bulle¬ 
tin board and went upstairs to her room, followed 
by a singularly silent Bobby and an equally con¬ 
templative Alice. 

“This,” announced Betty, when she had gained 
her castle, “is a kettle of fish!” 

“You will have to take the leading role, won’t 
you, Betty?” suggested Alice diffidently. 

“I most certainly will not—cannot,” Betty an¬ 
swered. “But I have a much harder job ahead 


BAD NEWS 187 

of me, and I don’t know whether I can swing it 
or not.” 

“What are you going to do?” asked Bobby, 
with lively curiosity. 

“Coach Ada in Latin,” replied Betty. “You 
are to tutor her in history and Libbie shall take 
her in French. Thank goodness, Libbie is a shark 
at French.” 

“Oh, Betty, that’s nonsense,” Bobby protested. 
“We have all we can do now, to keep up our own 
averages. Besides, Libbie is disqualified her¬ 
self.” 

“This operetta is the best thing we’ve ever 
done—all the girls say so,” said Betty stub¬ 
bornly. “I won’t have it fail when we’re so near 
the end. Ada has to have the lead because of 
her wonderful singing, and it’s up to us to pull 
her through.” 

“I’ll help Libbie with her Latin and math,” 
promised Alice. “But, Betty, by the time they 
work off their poor marks, it will be too late. 
Have you thought of that?” 

“I’m going to Mrs. Eustice,” explained Betty 
feverishly, “and ask her to let all the girls go 
on with rehearsals as usual. Then I’ll promise 
her that their recitations will be high right 
straight along and that they’ll pass the monthly 
tests.” 

“How do you know they will?” demanded 


188 BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

Bobby. “I can’t make Ada learn if she makes 
up her mind to be dumb.” 

“She’ll study—she is crazy to be in the play,” 
Betty said confidently. “We’ll coach and coach 
and COACH. I know we can do it! But it 
means a lot of extra work, of course.” 

“It’s all right for me. Libbie is a tractable 
lamb and I have only a small speaking part in the 
operetta,” said Alice. “But, Betty, you are work¬ 
ing your head off as it is; and Ada won’t be very 
easy to teach, as Bobby says.” 

“I won’t give up!” declared Betty. “We’ll all 
do our share, and we can manage it. I’ll have a 
class here in our room every night, and Bobby 
and I will do our studying in the afternoon, after 
rehearsal.” 

It was impossible not to be infected with such 
determination, and before Betty set off to inter¬ 
view Mrs. Eustice, Bobby and Alice had prom¬ 
ised to help her in every way. Bobby, in spite 
of her impatience, was capable of making many 
puzzling questions clear and history was her pet 
subject. Libbie, of course, could be depended 
upon to do her share. 

Mrs. Eustice listened without comment to the 
plan as outlined by Betty and, at the conclusion, 
assented promptly. 

“I cannot release the girls from classroom 
obligations, much as I may be inclined to be 


BAD NEWS 


189 

lenient, in view of their interest in the play,” said 
the principal. “They had full warning, and the 
fact that only six of them have dropped in their 
averages proves that I did not make unfair ex¬ 
actions.” 

“They’re the six we need most in the operetta,” 
Betty explained. 

“It usually is the six who are needed most, I 
believe,” replied Mrs. Eustice, smiling slightly. 
“However, Betty, I think, with you, that coach¬ 
ing will bring them through. I am quite willing 
to test your plan. The only change I wish to 
make is in the matter of holding the class. You 
and Bobby must spend some time outdoors after 
each rehearsal. Give one hour to the girls you 
are helping—that should be ample—and then 
you will have time to exercise in the air.” 

There remained the difficult task of “telling 
Ada.” Bobby flatly refused to accompany Betty 
on this errand, and Alice looked so unhappy at 
the suggestion that Betty hastily decided it would 
be better to go alone. She found Ada stretched 
pathetically on her bed, the loyal Ruth Gladys 
beside her, bathing her temples with cologne from 
a silver bottle. 

“I suppose you’ve seen the bulletin board,” 
groaned Ada. “Those hateful Nevins teachers 
can’t let me alone. They’d like to see me leave 


lgo BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

the school, but I won’t give them that satisfac¬ 
tion.” 

“I wouldn’t, either,” murmured Ruth Gladys 
indignantly. 

Betty had wisely resolved not to discuss this 
question. 

“Ada,” she began quickly, “we girls have been 
talking things over and we simply cannot let the 
operetta fall through. And without you it won’t 
be anything at all.” 

“Oh, some one else can sing it, I guess,” Ada 
said, but she did not sound convincing. 

“No one can sing it as you can,” declared 
Betty, with winning sincerity. “And, Ada, if you 
will let us, we’ll arrange things so you can go 
on with rehearsals. We’ll all help, and you can 
still be the Princess.” 

Ada sat up on the bed and drew her pink satin 
negligee over her shoulders. 

“How can you fix it ?” she asked eagerly. “I’ve 
flunked in three subjects—that is, my averages 
were marked down, but I’m positive I recited 
every time I was called on. I can’t help it if 
I’m not asked to recite, can I?” 

Betty proceeded quickly to give the details of 
her plan. Ada and Ruth listened absorbedly, but 
were not enthusiastic. 

“I hate to study,” said Ada discontentedly. 
“It’s enough work to learn the songs for the 


BAD NEWS 


I 9 I 

operetta, without being pinned down to lessons.” 

“If you don’t make up your points, you’ll be 
dropped from the cast,” Betty warned her. “You 
can’t even attend the next rehearsal unless you 
convince Mrs. Eustice that you are trying to gain 
your lost ground.” 

“And that is such a lovely dress for the 
Princess,” mused Ruth enviously. “The boys 
from Salsette have taken four rows in the or¬ 
chestra, too.” 

An overwhelming vision of what it would mean 
to her not to have the leading role, swept over 
Ada. 

“I’ll study!” she cried, in a sudden panic. 
“Help me, Betty, and I will try to do my best. 
Miss Harriet hurries me so, half the time I don’t 
understand what she wants the class to do.” 

“Half past three, in our room,” said Betty 
capably, “to-morrow afternoon.” 

Searching for a stamp in her purse after din¬ 
ner that night, Betty found her letter, still un¬ 
opened. She slit it with a hairpin and glanced 
at the contents. 

“Well, for pity’s sake!” cried the astonished 
Bobby, “did some one leave you a fortune?” 


3 


CHAPTER XXIV 

GOOD NEWS 

“No wonder I couldn’t guess it was from 
her,” said Betty. 

Bobby rolled her eyes ceilingward. “Give me 
patience,” she begged of the chandelier. 

“She never wrote to me before,” went on the 
enraptured Betty. “I didn’t give her my ad¬ 
dress! And now she has found it out in the 
queerest way!” 

“Lots of things are queer,” Bobby asserted 
dispassionately. “People are queer, too.” 

“You’ll never guess, if you try from now till 
to-morrow morning,” said Betty. 

Bobby flew at her chum and shook her gently. 

“Look here, Betty Gordon, if you don’t stop 
baiting me like this, I declare I’ll duck you under 
the cold water faucet!” she cried. “Either tell 
me what is in that silly letter, or don’t mention 
it to me again.” 

“It isn’t a silly letter,” protested Betty. “It’s 
from Cincinnati, and Mrs. Pendleton wrote it.” 

“Who’s Mrs. Pendleton?” Bobby demanded. 

192 


GOOD NEWS 


193 

“You know who she is. I told you when I 
first got back to school,” said Betty. “She’s the 
widow with the three girls, and their railroad 
tickets blew out of the train window.” 

“Oh, yes! And you picked them up!” recalled 
Bobby. “Well?” 

“This is too exciting for words!” bubbled 
Betty, who was reading the letter for the second 
time. “Where are the girls? I’ll have to tell 
them.” 

“I’ll go get them,” offered Bobby, beginning 
to feel excited herself. “They’re in the Guerins’ 
room. Alice has a new way of making an apron 
so that it looks like a collar and cuff set.” 

Bobby, who disdained “fancy work” of any 
kind, rushed off to break up the needleworkers’ 
conference, and in a few minutes was back, fol¬ 
lowed by the faithful six whose interest could al¬ 
ways be depended upon as far as Betty was con¬ 
cerned. 

“I have some wonderful news!” Betty greeted 
them. “You’ll be tickled when you hear it. A 
letter came to-day from Mrs. Pendleton.” 

“Mrs. Pendleton?” chorused three or four 
voices doubtfully. 

“Yes—you know. She’s the woman who was 
traveling with three children and her railroad 
tickets blew out of the window,” Betty explained, 


I 9 4 BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

having told the story at length and in detail to 
all her friends several times. 

“And they had dinner with you and Uncle 
Dick at the restaurant in town,” said Louise. 

“And they were going to Cincinnati to live 
with the mother’s Aunt Louise Esther,” Libbie 
prompted. 

“Yes, that’s right. You have a good memory, 
Libbie,” replied Betty approvingly. 

“I remembered it, because she has the same 
names as our Louise and Esther,” Libbie ex¬ 
plained modestly. 

“For goodness’ sake, stop throwing bouquets 
and let’s hear the news,” begged Bobby. “I 
thought Betty had been left a fortune, the way 
she looked.” 

“I haven’t, but Miss Harriet has I” Betty said 
quietly. 

“Miss Harriet?” stammered Bobby. “You 
don’t mean Miss Harriet Nevins?” 

“I certainly do!” and Betty nodded vigor¬ 
ously. 

“A fortune?” persisted Alice Guerin incredu- 
ously. 

“Well, not a million dollars,” Betty admitted. 
“But five thousand—and that amount is worth 
saying ‘thank you’ for.” 

“But what has Mrs. Pendleton to do with 
it?” asked Alice’s sister, Norma. 


GOOD NEWS 


195 

“Don’t tell me Mrs. Pendleton died and they 
found a teapot full of money,” Louise said. 

“Mrs. Pendleton isn’t dead. She’s very much 
alive,” Betty answered, enjoying the mystifica¬ 
tion of the girls. 

Even Bobby was puzzled. 

“Didn’t anybody die?” she asked, and her dis¬ 
appointed tone almost convulsed Betty. 

“Aunt Louise Esther died,” Betty confided, 
taking pity on her chums. “The old lady left her 
house and twenty thousand dollars in cash to 
Mrs. Pendleton. And that good soul is going 
to send our Miss Harriet five thousand dollars 
at once; in fact, I suppose it is on the way now.” 

Bobby blinked rapidly. 

“Didn’t know she knew Miss Harriet,” she 
murmured. “What made her pick her out for 
a present? I think that’s a lot of money to give 
away at one time.” 

“That is how Mrs. Pendleton found out where 
I was,” said Betty. “Miss Harriet happened to 
mention my name in one of her letters.” 

“But she didn’t send you five thousand dollars,” 
Bobby pointed out. 

“Betty, don’t tease. Why does Miss Harriet 
get the money?” Alice asked. 

Betty stood up and flung out her arms. 

“Because, my little ones,” she exclaimed joy¬ 
ously, “the children Miss Harriet saved in that 


196 BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

burning house—you remember the story Mrs. 
Eustice told us—were Rose and Mary and Pearl 
Pendleton!” 

Bobby dived over among the pillows of the 
bed and beat an ecstatic tattoo on the comforter 
with her feet. 

“Hurrah for Miss Harriet!” she) shrieked. 
“Hurrah for Mrs. Pendleton! She’s a brick!” 

A firm knock sounded on the door. 

“Girls, you are making entirely too much 
noise,” said Miss Martha, looking in reproach¬ 
fully at them. “Bobby, I do wish you would 
learn not to sit on the bed.” 

Bobby slid meekly to the floor. 

“I had a letter from Mrs. Laurene Pendleton, 
Miss Martha,” said Betty, a little diffidently. 
“She spoke about Miss Harriet.” 

Miss Martha’s face brightened. 

“I didn’t know you knew her,” she said 
eagerly. 

“Yes, I know her,” answered Betty, and told 
of the recovered railroad tickets and the dinner 
at the restaurant afterwards. “She wrote to me 
about her inheritance and of sending a fourth of 
it to your sister. It was glorious of her to do 
it, I think.” 

“It was, indeed. The check for five thousand 
dollars came this morning. My sister can 


GOOD NEWS 


197 

scarcely believe her good fortune.” And after a 
few words more Miss Martha Nevins left. 

“What do you suppose Miss Harriet will do 
with the money?” speculated Bobby, when Miss 
Martha had hurried away. 

“Go around the world,” Libbie ventured. 
“That’s what I’d do.” 

“How silly you are!” said Bobby, as usual 
feeling it her duty to squelch her younger cousin. 
“She ought to put that five thousand in the bank 
and save it for her old age.” 

“Why don’t you go and tell Mrs. Eustice, 
Betty?” urged Norma Guerin. “She’ll like to 
hear about Mrs. Pendleton; and you know Miss 
Harriet—she leaves out all the interesting de¬ 
tails.” 

Betty did tell Mrs. Eustice the good news, 
and it spread rapidly throughout the school. The 
majority of the girls had no very clear idea of 
the possibilities or limitations of the sum of five 
thousand dollars, and they, in imagination, spent 
Miss Harriet’s little fortune many times over. 
The popular consensus of opinion was that she 
ought to buy herself and her sister a complete 
and modish wardrobe and take dancing lessons! 

“Then,” outlined Ada Nansen, “having gained 
social poise, Miss Harriet ought to live abroad 
for two or three years and perfect herself in 


198 BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

i 

languages. After that, if she didn’t care to teach, 
she might write.” 

But Miss Harriet, usually so colorless in her 
opinions and views, displayed no indecision in 
regard to her first inheritance. She insisted that 
it must be divided into two portions and, despite 
vehement protests from Miss Martha, be banked 
half in her sister’s name and half in her own. 

“You can’t move Harriet, once she makes up 
her mind,” said Miss Martha to Miss Ander¬ 
son. “I’m only thankful I’ve been able to influ¬ 
ence her in one direction; she is going to that 
wonderful hospital in Brunner and have a special¬ 
ist treat the scars on her face and hands. They 
told her a year ago that they can guarantee her 
at least seventy-five per cent improvement.” 

“And I think it is the wisest thing she can 
possibly do,” Miss Anderson commented, repeat¬ 
ing this decision to Betty. “She will be a far 
happier woman if some of the scars can be re¬ 
moved from her face. I believe she is going 
at once, so she can be back before the holidays.” 

“Then,” said the practical Betty, “if Mrs. 
Eustice is going to take the Latin classes, I’ll 
have to coach over-time. I can’t have Ada flunk¬ 
ing directly to the principal.” 

More than once in the hectic week which fol¬ 
lowed did Betty regret her offer to pull Ada and 
the other delinquents through the mire of their 


GOOD NEWS 


199 

despair. She found it not the easiest task in the 
world to keep the girls to their tasks and drill 
them constantly in addition to learning her own 
lessons, practicing her part in the operetta, and 
lending a hand with the costumes and scenery. 

One thing, however, happened to brighten 
Betty’s horizon during those busy days. One 
morning Mrs. Eustice called her into the office 
and held out something in her thin, shapely hand. 
It was Betty’s wrist watch! 

“Oh,” cried the girl, and for the moment could 
not speak. 

“It was recovered by the detective on one 
of the pawn tickets taken from Towsky’s hand¬ 
bag,” said the principal. “It seems to be in per¬ 
fect running order.” 

“How glad I am!” cried Betty, and fairly 
hugged the timepiece. “I was afraid it might be 
gone forever.” 

“We have recovered all of the jewelry,” said 
Mrs. Eustice. “The money, of course, is gone— 
that is, the greater part of it. But the pupils 
and teachers will lose nothing, as the school will 
make all losses good.” And then Betty was dis¬ 
missed, to run off to the other girls and proclaim 
her good fortune. There was general rejoicing 
when the other jewelry came back. 

Miss Harriet Nevins had gone immediately to 
the hospital and was cheerfully enduring pain and 


200 BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

enforced idleness, while Mrs. Eustice took charge 
of her classes in Latin. Betty had a horror of 
any of her “pupils” failing in this study, and she 
exerted all her will power and talent to line them 
up properly prepared. Libbie patiently coached 
Ada in French and was in turn tutored in Latin 
and mathematics intelligently by Alice Guerin. 
Bobby did her best to “cram” history into Ada, 
and as that young person really tried her best 
to learn, her averages gradually crept up to the 
desired mark. 

But Betty was thankful when the day for the 
operetta arrived and it was too late to make any 
changes in the cast. After a last long and ex¬ 
acting dress rehearsal, she put on her heavy coat 
and hat and tramped off alone, choosing the drive 
around the lake, because she liked to breast the 
stiff wind. 

“ ’Lo, Betsey!” called some one gaily, and Bob 
Henderson’s glowing face looked up at her from 
a rowboat. 

“If it gets much colder, we’ll have skating!” 
he said cheerfully. “Want to come for a little 
row?” 

Betty shook her head. 

“I’d like to lie down and sleep for a year,” 
she returned. “Or at least till the operetta is 
over.” 

“I knew it!” Bob scolded. “I told Tommy 


GOOD NEWS 


201 


they were letting you do too much. As if your 
own school work and your part in the play wasn’t 
enough, you must go to coaching that chump of 
an Ada Nansen and sewing on the scarfs Bobby 
promised to finish and then let slide! To say 
nothing of trying to keep Ada from getting up¬ 
stage and Libbie and Bobbie from disgracing 
themselves by scrapping in the middle of the op¬ 
eretta! I don’t wonder you’re tired, Betty; it’s 
a wonder to me you’re not in the infirmary.” 

“How did you know about the scarfs?” de¬ 
manded Betty, ignoring the rest of his canny 
speech. 

“Secret service,” Bob assured her. “Don’t 
think you girls can get away with anything we 
don’t wish you to.” 

“Bobby told Tommy and he told you,” guessed 
Betty deftly. “That’s easy. You’re surely com¬ 
ing to-night, aren’t you, Bob?” 

“We’ll all be present or accounted for,” he 
promised her. “Roland Rice says you’re the best 
actress Shadyside has, and while I gasp at his 
nerve I do admire his taste.” 

“Betty!” cried Bobby, running down the road 
hatless, “do hurry! The loveliest flowers have 
come for you—by express.” 


CHAPTER XXV 


BETTY DOES SOME WELDING 

If there was one thing that “thrilled” Betty it 
was a long white box from the florist’s in the city. 
And when she opened this and found a great 
sheaf of crimson roses, how her eyes did sparkle! 

“Only the reddest of red roses for my Betty- 
girl, with all my love and applause for her to¬ 
night 1” read the card. 

“Uncle Dick sent them,” said Betty happily. 
“What’s in the other box?” 

“We didn’t open that,” Bobby explained. “The 
lid was almost off this and we couldn’t help seeing 
the roses. But I ran to get you before any one 
smelled ’em.” 

Betty laughed and the girls who had shared 
her school joys and troubles for nearly two years 
crowded closer to watch her open the second box. 

“Bouquets!” cried Bobby. 

“One for each,” Betty said, hastily reading the 
cards. “Aren’t they pretty? Here, Louise! And, 
Libbie. And, Connie, here’s yours. Bobby and 
Alice and Norma. And this is yours, Frances. 


202 


BETTY DOES SOME WELDING 


203 

Oh, I have one, too! Well, if Uncle Dick isn’t 
a dear!” 

The bouquets were made up with frills of lace 
paper and were faithful copies of the old-fash¬ 
ioned nosegays that had probably delighted Bet¬ 
ty’s grandmother in her young days. The girls 
fled to Aunt Nancy to ask her to put them in the 
ice-box till after the operetta when Mrs. Eustice 
had promised there should be dancing in the gym¬ 
nasium. Betty put her roses in a vase and their 
fragrance filled the room. Libbie insisted that 
all the doors of the unit be left open, because 
she was sure that the odor of roses would pene¬ 
trate to the furthest corner of the suite. 

“I’m so nervous, I could enjoy a scrap,” said 
Bobby, rushing up from dinner to get the black 
silk stockings that went with her cat costume. 

“I was fidgety, but I feel all right now,” Betty 
declared serenely. 

Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were 
shining, but the tired feeling had left her, and 
instead she was elated, gloriously excited and hap¬ 
pily sure of herself. She knew that she would 
not break down in her role. 

“You make such a darling young prince,” ob¬ 
served Bobby, surveying her chum with manifest 
approval when Betty was dressed. “Wouldn’t 
you like to be a boy, Betty? You could wear 
knickers all the time and have such fun!” 


204 BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

“I don’t know whether I’d like it or not,” 
Betty returned, giving an extra pat to her shining 
dark hair. “I have fun being a girl. I don’t 
believe I’d want to be a boy for keeps.” 

“Certainly not!” said Miss Anderson, with de¬ 
cision. “There is nothing nicer to be than a girl 
—you take my word for it. In this day and age 
a girl has no excuse for envying the masculine sex. 
You’d better be thankful for your bushel o’ bless¬ 
ing.” 

Miss Anderson was flying from room to room, 
helping the girls with their costumes. It was 
requiring a great deal of running upstairs and 
down and much slamming of doors to get Ada 
properly dressed. If she had been a real princess, 
grumbled Bobby, she couldn’t have expected more 
attendance. No amount of powder and grease 
paint and red velvet drapery could make Ada 
beautiful—her little, thin face was too sallow 
and her expression too discontented for that— 
but her frock was gorgeous and her jewelry, from 
the rope of pearl beads to the low rhinestone 
crown that twinkled in her hair, was satisfying 
in the extreme. 

“Betty is a dream and Ada looks like a million 
dollars,” Libbie summed up. “How does my hair 
look, girls?” 

The pride of Libbie’s heart was her wig of 
long white horse hair which streamed over her 


BETTY DOES SOME WELDING 205 

shoulders and transformed her into a plump little 
old witch. Betty assured her that no one would 
ever guess she was thirteen years old, and that 
pleased Libbie more than any flowery speech could 
have touched her. 

“I hope I don’t melt,” sighed Bobby, as Miss 
Anderson buttoned her into the cat costume, a 
black flannel affair with touches of caracul to 
give the illusion of fur. 

“It won’t button on the head, but whatever you 
do, don’t lose it,” the teacher cautioned. “Come, 
girls, we’re going down now.” 

Behind the scenes, before the curtain was 
raised, there was all the dear, hilarious excitement 
that goes with every school play. Bobby stationed 
herself at the peephole, reporting that Mrs. Eus- 
tice, wearing a new gown, sat in the row of seats 
reserved for the faculty; that the cadets from 
Salsette, looking very handsome and soldierly in 
their dress uniforms, were filing in; that the or¬ 
chestra were taking their places. 

The overture was played, then the curtain rose 
and the tuneful operetta of “The Princess Who 
Wanted the Moon” offered its musical opening 
chorus to an admiring audience. The first act 
went with fair smoothness, except that Ada would 
fall “like a wooden barber pole,” to quote Bobby, 
into the arms of her Prince. But Ada did her 
best to be graceful, having for once a most lively 


206 BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

sense of gratitude toward Betty, who had made 
it possible for her to know the intoxicating joy 
of being “leading lady.” 

Libbie and Bobby were not to appear till the 
second act, and Libbie was on the stage when 
it opened. She sat by the fire, watching a huge 
black cauldron. After an aria—so finely sung 
that Ada was recalled twice—the cue was given 
for Bobby, but no black cat ambled balefully 
out. Betty, nearest the wings, grasped the situ¬ 
ation first. 

“She has—she has—she has lost her head!” 
she warbled to the astonished Ada and Libbie, 
•while the orchestra played the page over. “Her 
cat head—you know, the head to her costume!” 

Bob, who listened intently to every word Betty 
spoke or sang, caught enough to guess what she 
was singing now. He grinned and leaned forward 
in his seat. 

Libbie was rapidly being reduced to tears and 
Ada’s look of distress was communicating itself 
to the audience, when out gamboled a queer crea¬ 
ture with a smothered “Meow!” To the amaze¬ 
ment and horror of the auditorium, this odd ani¬ 
mal made straight for the fire and would have 
walked into the cauldron, if the Prince had not 
put out a kindly hand and held it back. 

“My head’s on backward!” hissed Bobby. “I 
can’t see a thing!” 


BETTY DOES SOME WELDING 


20 7 


And so, to her natural handicap of awkward¬ 
ness—Bobby was totally without stage presence— 
was added that of blindness, for the nervous 
Louise, who had found the missing cat’s head 
under the table, had buttoned it over her sister 
in addled haste and placed it wrong side before. 

The audience rocked with laughter every time 
Bobby stirred—her grinning cat face looking one 
way and her body moving in another—but Betty 
kept steadfastly to the music and swept the others 
along with her. The Cat and the Witch dis¬ 
appeared just before the end of the play, and the 
Prince and Princess sang an appealing duet that 
brought them before the curtain a dozen times 
and forced them to repeat until the tired orchestra 
faltered and gave in. 

Then came dancing in the gymnasium—where 
the eight bouquets made their first public appear¬ 
ance—refreshments—and more congratulations. 

“Everything is just lovely,” Betty declared, 
sitting out a dance with Bob, her glowing eyes 
resting contentedly on the scene before them. 
“Ada was as nice as she could be to-night—and 
Bobby has more patience with Libbie than she 
used to have.” 

She was thinking of Miss Anderson’s remark 
that she hoped the operetta would succeed in 
“welding a better school spirit among the girls.” 


208 BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

“I wonder—” thought Betty, drifting off into 
a dream of her own. 

She considered the dream more thoroughly af¬ 
ter lights were out that night. Surely a better 
school spirit would mean better work and greater 
happiness. 

“Miss Martha has gone to bring her sister 
back, Betty,” said Mrs. Eustice, early in the week 
following the play. “Miss Harriet writes me 
that her face is greatly improved.” 

Betty was suddenly very busy for the next two 
days. She paid many visits to the rooms of other 
girls, she seemed to be talking and arguing with 
Ada and Ruth Gladys Royal. She even had a 
secret conference with George and with Dave 
McGuire, who, since the departure of Towsky, 
had done his duties and their own cheerfully. 

“George will stop at the express office,” whis¬ 
pered Betty to Bobby, as she passed her on the 
stairs the morning the two Nevins sisters were 
expected. Bobby nodded and smiled as though 
she understood. 

The bus was back from the station before as¬ 
sembly was called, and Betty disappeared from 
view and was not in her accustomed place when 
the girls went into the study hall. 

The school looked eagerly toward the plat¬ 
form, anxious to see how Miss Harriet looked. 


BETTY DOES SOME WELDING 


209 


“Brand new dresses!’’ whispered Libbie to 
Louise. “Miss Harriet looks pale, doesn’t she?” 

She did look pale, but infinitely better. The 
cruel scars that had drawn down her mouth, giv¬ 
ing her a doleful expression, had been removed 
by skillful treatment, and her face was almost 
smooth. The surgeon had been successful with 
her hands, too, and they lay white and fair in 
her lap. She looked years younger and far hap¬ 
pier. She and her sister were better dressed than 
the girls had ever seen them, and now indeed 
they seemed for the first time to be what, in truth, 
they had always been—young, intelligent, college- 
bred women. 

Mrs. Eustice had finished reading the Chapter 
and was turning to her notices for the day when 
down the main aisle marched Betty, almost hidden 
beneath two large bouquets of American Beauty 
roses, extravagantly large and dewy flowers which 
in themselves explained the mysterious visit of 
George to the express office. 

“Mrs. Eustice,” said Betty clearly, “these flow¬ 
ers are for Miss Harriet and Miss Martha, from 
their girls in the second year Latin and history 
classes. Every girl in these two classes gives her 
sincere good wishes with the roses.” 

Mrs. Eustice leaned down and took the flowers, 
then turned to place them in the teachers’ arms, 
smiling with a look in her eyes that Betty knew 


210 BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

meant she was pleased and touched and proud 
of her girls. 

Miss Harriet stood up, her pale face catching 
a little of the exquisite glow of the roses she held. 

“These are the first flowers that have ever 
been given to me,” she said clearly, “and I shall 
remember them all my life.” 

Over her armful of flowers, Miss Martha faced 
the girls and suddenly tears began to rain down 
on the lovely buds. 

“I’m only crying because I’m happy,” she man¬ 
aged to stammer. “That’s an odd way to say 
‘thank you,’ but you’ll have to forgive me.” 

Ada glanced covertly at Ruth Gladys Royal 
who sat beside her. 

“I’m glad now we let Betty persuade us to 
contribute to the flower fund,” she murmured. 
“It’s nice to know every girl in both classes gave 
something. Somehow, the things Betty plans al¬ 
ways come out right.” 

“Yes, don’t they?” agreed Ruth, a little wist¬ 
fully. 


THE END 


THE RUTH FIELDING SERIES 

By ALICE B. EMERSON 

12 mo. Illustrated 

Price per volume, 65 cents, postpaid 
Ruth Fielding will live in juvenile Fiction. 

RUTH FIELDING OF THE RED MILL 

or Jasper Parole's Secret 

RUTH FIELDING AT BRIARWOODHALL 

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RUTH FIELDING AT SNOW CAMP 

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RUTH FIELDING AT LIGHTHOUSE 
POINT or Nita, the Girl Castaway 
RUTH FIELDING AT SILVER RANCH 

or Schoolgirls Among the Cowboys 

RUTH FIELDING ON CLIFF ISLAND 

or The Old Hunter's Treasure Box 

RUTH FIELDING AT SUNRISE FARM 

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RUTH FIELDING AND THE GYPSIES 

or The Missing Pearl Necklace 

RUTH FIELDING IN MOVING PICTURES 

or Helping the Dormitory Fund 

RUTH FIELDING DOWN IN DIXIE 

or Great Days in the Land of Cotton 

RUTH FIELDING AT COLLEGE 

or The Missing Examination Papers 

RUTH FIELDING IN THE SADDLE 

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RUTH FIELDING IN THE RED CROSS 

or Doing Her Bit for Uncle Sam 

RUTH FIELDING AT THE WAR FRONT 

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THE BETTY GORDON SERIES 

By ALICE B. EMERSON 

Author of the Famous Ruth Fielding 99 Series 

12 mo. Cloth . Illustrated. Jacket in full colors 

Price per volume, 65 cents, postpaid 


A series of stories by Alice B. Emerson which 
are bound to make this writer more popular 
than ever with her host of girl readers . 

1. BETTY GORDON AT BRAMBLE 
FARM 

or The Mystery of a Nobody 
At the age of twelve Betty is left an orphan. 

2. BETTY GORDON IN WASHINGTON 

or Strange Adventures in a Great City 
In this volume Betty goes to the National Capitol to find her 
uncle and has several unusual adventures. 

3. BETTY GORDON IN THE LAND OF OIL 

or The Farm That Was Worth a Fortune 
From Washington the scene is shifted to the great oil fields of 
our country. A splendid picture of the oil field operations of today. 

4. BETTY GORDON AT BOARDING SCHOOL 

or The Treasure of Indian Chasm 
Seeking^ the treasure of Indian Chasm makes an exceedingly inter¬ 
esting incident. 

5. BETTY GORDON AT MOUNTAIN CAMP 

or The Mystery of Ida Bellethorne 
At Mountain Camp Betty found herself in the midst of a mystery 
involving a girl whom she had previously met in Washington. 

6. BETTY GORDON AT OCEAN PARK 

or School Chums on the Boardwalk 
A glorious outing that Betty and her chums never forgot. 

7. BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS 

or Bringing the Rebels to Terms 

Rebellious students, disliked teachers and mysterious robberies 
make a fascinating story: 

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